Battlestar Galactica: The Chrome Berets
by SunDevil
Summary: A possible reason for the invasion, and a hard look at the results


Chapter One

Puzzles and Doves

PLANET VIRGON

Date-Time 12/27/47 0345 Twelve days before Cylon Attack.

Unusual silence of Cylon radio traffic and lack of intelligence from Listening posts.

Virgonian Defense Forces placed in Alert Posture 2. Orders are issued from VDF high command Lt. General Rolf Gustaf.

The odd silence of Cylon radio traffic had caused me to believe that our intelligence lines are compromised and that the Cylons are not willing to deal with the Colonial Council honestly. Since that is the case, I have reason to believe that the peace accords are a rouse and that we should raise the Alert Level to a higher level in order to assure proper response ability from the limited resources we have.  
While I believe that the primary resources of the First and Sixth fleets are certainly capable of protecting the inner colonies, those of us in outer colonies are less than appropriately protected. To this end, I have requested that at least two battle groups be tasked with the outer colony defenses. That request was made four months ago, to date, there has been no response, and so I must conclude that no action has been or will be taken.  
The silence along the Cylon front, especially around the jump point to HPY-8715, which is the primary invasion point that any Cylon invasion force would certainly use, seems too convenient. I do not trust the Cylons, especially after the odd silence from the entire Fifth Fleet. Molokai may have served only to draw the Cylon attention away from the Moloch's and onto us. Though there was success in defeating the Cylons years ago, I believe that the equipment and coordination of the Cylon war machine has far exceeded the preparations that we have made for system defense. Thus far, we have been lucky to hold the Cylons to a line just outside of the colonies, but I believe this is only because the Cylons have been focused on the Moloch's and not on us.  
With the loss of four Battlestars, especially the Pegasus and the Bucephalus, I fear that the First and Sixth fleets are going to be unable to fend off a concerted effort by the Cylons to exploit the jump point. I have armed the defense satellites around Virgon with the new CDL-10 Laser weapons as well as the networking software developed to defend against invasion barges, however, since there have been no successful tests of this defense system, we are still heavily reliant on the system defense boats as well as the primary space platform Haven. I find it disturbing to rely on a space platform that is nearly six hundred years old. It is a blessing from the Lords that the platform is still serviceable.

CYLON CENTRAL COMMAND

Balthazar turned in his command chair to face the Leaders he had chosen. "By Your Command…" they chimed in as one.  
"Report!" he commanded.  
"The resources required to lure in, and destroy the Colonial Fifth Fleet has drained the long term resources of the Cylon battle reserves far below the acceptable level. It is with much regret that we report that the reserves will be unable to keep up with the attrition levels that we are experiencing due to the war with the Moloch's, as well as with a new front with the humans. To this end, your war council advises that we must find a way to destroy the humans. The Moloch's cannot launch an offence against us for at least six months. There is a window of opportunity here that we can exploit. The humans still do not know the details of their Fifth Fleet's destruction. There is a chance we can mislead them into believing that the Fifth smashed our fleets, and that we are willing to sue for peace. To this end we have contacted our agents within the Colonial command and are awaiting only your consent to begin the rouse." The lead Commander reported.   
"If this works, how long can we fight two fronts before the resources are beyond acceptable levels?" Balthazar quizzed.  
"Six months would be a conservative estimate. Eleven months would be more realistic. Best estimate would be a year, maybe just over." Lucifer advised. He was new to command, and eager to prove his value, but Balthazar did not trust him yet. Balthazar would learn.  
"I will send word that we wish to sue for peace." Balthazar told his aids. He did not have to inform them of his decision at this time, but he could not afford to look indecisive with some of the new model command series Cylons under his command. They were eager and hungry for commands of their own. He had to show them a strong leader that planned faster than they plan, and was capable of thinking at high levels with all three brains that he possessed. "Dismissed." He said loudly, showing them his ability to be the supreme leader of all Cylon forces.  
Lucifer nodded and backed away the three steps that showed his respect, before turning to leave. To turn his back on Balthazar directly would have led to a summary execution. That sort of disrespect was often punished quickly, typically at the end of one of the Gold Centurion's swords.  
The leadership of all Cylon forces left the command room and began their journeys back to their respective commands.  
Back in the command room, Balthazar looked at the holographic displays of his forces strengths and positions. Sixth months. Balthazar was not thrilled with the estimate. Eleven months was better, and he hoped that the estimates were going to be more along the "realistic" level. If he could divert the supply lines from the Moloch front to a massive attack on the colonies. He began to work the mathematics in one of his brains as he moved units into place in his hologram. He began to see how it _COULD _work. He would have to draw the colonial forces into position around Caprica. If they were outside the inner defense satellites, the Sentinels, they would be crushed. The Sentinels were small and hidden, highly effective and armed with anti-starship weapons and were capable of tearing an invasion fleet to pieces. To get past them, he would either have to lure the colonial fleets our from their safe harbors, or find a way inside them. Hiding a Basestar was no simple task, however. Balthazar began to consider what size ships were known to be able to slip past the Sentinels.  
Anything larger than a Raider would be picked up, not because of their size, but because of their gravity. The sensors aboard the Sentinels were fully capable of detecting the gravitational attraction of capital ships, by detecting the change in trajectory of known meteorites. The smallest change in their trajectories was enough to draw their cameras and radio telescopes onto the precise location of the anomaly. Detection was sure and swift, as was the retaliation. He had to find a way to get those Raiders into position inside the colonial defenses, but he could not carry them in assault carriers or Basestars. He considered the possibility of using refuelers and having the Raiders attack on their own. He would be able to spare only a few hundred Raiders, which meant the possible sacrifice of a few dozen tankers and nearly a thousand Centurions. He did not like the idea of losing so many of his loyal and expensive troops, but there was simply no other way.  
He sent word to his commanders after giving it much thought. The Raiders who attacked the fleet would depart from several tankers after refueling, the Basestars would follow soon afterwards, bombing and finishing off the human colonies after their primary defenses are destroyed. He considered that impudent little IL series, Lucifer, and decided to send him off to handle the human traitor, giving Lucifer's command to another unit, a new one, IL-770.  
Balthazar walked down the long circular stairs to the floor of the Command Chambers. He paced back and forth, as he thought about the coming battles. He turned to look up at the recessed lighting as he worked his second brain on the mathematical calculations of odds and percentages of success. He decided that the plan had about a 78 percent chance of succeeding. That percentage was within the acceptable limits that he had calculated were safe. There was a small chance of an unexpected event turning the plan on end, but if the Cylon Empire were to survive, they must take some risks. The destruction of Opus 9 had been a bitter set back. The Moloch's had somehow been able to sneak onto the planet Opus 9 and had detonated a suicide bomber in the heart of their solium processing plant. The detonation of the entire seven-year supply of solium split the planet in half, throwing its single moon out of orbit, which fell into the sun weeks after. Millions of Cylons had died, but the real loss was the seven-year supply of solium. Without the solium, faster than light travel was impractical and energy production was crippled. So far, Balthazar had been forced to place fifteen entire planetary systems on energy ration, and had been forced to withdraw his four primary invasion fleets from Moloch space. If the human colonies could be taken without the loss of their solium plants and processing stations, then the Cylon Empire could reclaim Moloch planetary systems and exterminate the troublesome life forms for the destruction they caused on Opus 9.  
The need for solium was the one weakness that all intelligent life forms shared. The Moloch's had the most, with four planets rich with it, which was how they were holding back the Cylons. They fed their giant defense lasers with obscene amounts of solium. The powerful lasers were capable of firing farther than the Basestars, which made it impossible to get an invasion barge near them. The humans had nearly as much solium, but they did not seem to understand the importance of their fuel source. That would not matter much longer.  
He summoned the guards and had them bring in new data on how the humans were reacting towards the loss of their fifth fleet. So far, they did not seem to understand the significance of the loss. They kept sending what they video grams back and forth trying to convince themselves and each other that the fleet was merely out of touch and still intact. The humans seemed capable of convincing themselves of whatever they wanted to believe. He looked around; his multifaceted eyes took in the shining gold Centurions and smiled. He would send them off to monitor the fuelers and the Raiders. He would also send the Red Raider that his ally, Count Iblis, had created to lead the assault on the human fleet. He would play all his high cards and devastate the humans to the point that any resistance would be futile and nothing more than a nuisance.  
He walked out of the command chambers and down the ramp to a balcony that overlooked the city center of the Cylon home world. The lights and digital displays lit the night sky as the millions of civilians went about their lives with no regard to the war and idea of what was about to come. He would have smiled if he had the ability to, but he did not. Soon though, he would have the solium and the empirical security to conduct evolutionary experiments to produce the next generation of Cylons. The human model that the centurion was based off would be a good model to continue with. Balthazar had decided to attempt to use biotechnology like the Shadx, perhaps making the next generation more biological than cybernetic. He could affect a purge after the research, eliminating the IL series altogether. He was suspicious of those IL series, and had been against their development. They were too independent, too uncontrolled. He would be sure to build in some submission protocols into the next generation. Discipline was the first order of an effective military. The IL series were evasive and distrustful. He clenched the metal rail in his clawed hands, bending the finely contoured shape in his rage. He would show them, he would show them all.

COLONIAL FLEET INTELLIGENCE OFFICE

Planet Caprica: Monte Claire Radio Observatory.  
12/30/47 1830

Major Delangelo looked over the data yet again. He was unsure of what to make of it. The brief flash of radio noise and the following flurry of Cylon high level traffic seemed not only important, but also intrigued him on another level. He had wanted to be a cryptographer since he was a young man. He had gotten his start doing simple brainteasers such as letter replacement codes and language deciphering games. He spoke seventy-eight languages at last count, and over two thousand dialects. He was fluent in nearly every language known to man, and even was able to read the Cylon written language as fast as a Cylon. To him, the mystery of the riddle was its own reward. He would have done his job for free if they had asked him to, but the fact that he was paid so very, very well, he could not see any way of living that could possibly be better.  
The sudden silence that followed the Cylon event was more interesting than the event itself. The Cylons were keeping the event secret. That meant it was something that was of high-level importance. He could tell by the wavelength of the explosion flash that it was an unimaginable amount of solium involved. He could not even begin to estimate the amount, but it had to be mind boggling in its destruction. The following flash, days later, was something he had never seen before.  
Science officers had decided that it was caused by a large solar body falling into a sun. Delangelo was curious about that. What connection did the two events have? Were the Cylons breaking apart planets to get at the resources inside? If they were able to do that, they would have a terrifying new ability. So far, Colonial Fleet Intelligence had not thought that the Cylons had enough solium to develop and test such weapons. If what his radio telescopes had picked up was what it seemed, the entire basis of Colonial security needed to be restructured.  
He typed out a summary of his findings and sent them to Fleet Headquarters on Aerilon. His recommendation was to pull the fleet back into a tighter defensive posture and to increase the probe activity into Cylon space. He put in a request for further information if it presented itself, so that he could better interpret the data he had. Riddles were delightful, but solving them was a feast for his mind.

Fleet Strategic Space Command  
Planet Aerilon

General Marcos Bosnaric was never happy. That was the impression he gave everyone he met. The image was difficult to maintain, his aides and fellow officers tried, from time to time, to make him laugh, or even smile. They rarely succeeded, and more often than not earned only his reproach and condemnation. He played a necessary game, however. As long as he was known as a "hard ass", his troops would maintain the highest level of discipline and excellence. Perhaps that is why it was so out of place that he seemed shocked, stunned, bewildered. The Cylon plea for a peace treaty was complete felgercarb, that much was sure. However, Baltar, the Council Presidents most trusted advisor, had championed the peace plan. Marcos scoffed at the idea of peace with the toasters. No peace treaty had yet been successful with the Cylons and he could see no reason why this would be any different. He was not sure exactly what the connection was between the massive explosions around the Opus system, and the sudden peace offer. He also was not sure what had happened to the Fifth Fleet, but he suspected it was somehow destroyed. He could not imagine how the Fifth could have been destroyed; it was under the legendary Commander Cain's control. They had sent several Battlestars as well as assault carriers and a dozen destroyers. It was almost unthinkable that that entire task force could be destroyed. There had to be something else involved. After all, if the fifth fleet was in danger, Cain would have has the bulk of it jump away to save what he could. That was just what kind of man Cain was. Marcos knew that, he had gone through officer's school with the old war dagget, and was God Father of his daughter.  
He flipped through the pages of a report sent by the command of Virgon Defenses. It was another request for weapons and a larger budget supplement. As if Virgon was in need of such things. He set it aside; it was another report, like the hundreds of others that that fraking VDF commander sent him. He was sick to death of the requests for aid. Virgon was a fraking pleasure planet; they needed some morality, not weapons. And the church of whores they passed off as a religion made him sick. Scorpios would never tolerate such a distasteful thing, and he was not obliged to assist any of the heathens at any level.  
He pulled over a new report, one from Fleet Signal Office, otherwise known Monte Claire Signal Station. The report referenced the two explosions that the deep space probes hidden in the Opus sector had reported earlier. It also recommended that the Fleet be pulled in closer for possible system defense. Marcos thought about the idea of pulling the fleet in closer. That idiot Baltar had requested the same thing, but not for defense, but as a parade of sorts for the Peace Treaty. The President had also signed off on that stupid idea, yet in the context that this Intel Officer placed it, it made sense. Pulling the Fleet in would satisfy both the President, as well as to take steps to protect the inner colonies. If anything went wrong, he could go either direction to assign blame. If it went horribly wrong, he could point to the President himself. If it only caused a sleight headache, he could shove the issue onto the shoulders of some Major in Signals. He grinned and signed off on the report and sent it through to Fleet Operations for approval from the Admiralty. If they signed it off, then he was covered on all sides and immune from harm. He grinned, and that made his aides nervous. Something was not right.

CYLON CENTRAL COMMAND

Lucifer did not agree with Balthazar. As much as he wanted revenge on the Moloch's for the destruction of the mega city on Opus, he was not sold on the need to make war on the humans. Surely, the Cylon Empire would be better served by making treaties with the humans. He would argue that the Cylon Empire could buy the much-needed solium from the humans. The citizens would not have to starve. Humans did not consume solium like Cylons did, so they had less need for it, surely they would sell a portion of their stocks or trade for food and technology. Many Cylon worlds had more food products than other resources, but they were waste products to the Cylons. What harm could it possibly cause the Empire to trade off its garbage for food?  
The Imperious Leader was foolishly going to make a new front in a war with the humans. He would have shaken his head if that sort of emotion was expressed that way, but to an IL series Cylon, the most expression that was possible was some sarcasm. Lucifer did not bother with sarcasm in this instance; he was more concerned with the horrific loss of over a billion Cylons from Opus 9 and its moon and orbital stations. He had known several hundred of the dead, he had helped with the managing of the lunar settlements and his distant family, such as it is to a Cylon, was there when the terrorists took their lives in the barbaric act of insanity. He felt what was classified as both remorse and anger.  
He was at a loss to decipher how more death was going to make the situation better. However, he was a loyal Cylon and would do his duty, no matter how illogical that duty seemed. The Imperious Leader was old, and his logic circuits were failing, it was only a matter of time until he would need to be recycled. When that day came, Lucifer would be ready to campaign for the position. At that time, he would do, as he wanted to stop the insanity and stop the pointless war with the humans, and the Moloch's. However, to do so, he would have to be oh so clever, playing the political game like a chess game. He would have to take advantage of every opportunity that presented itself, and say or do whatever he must to not be recycled himself.   
He walked along the top walkway with four other IL Cylons. He was rather lost in thought, using two of his three brains to ponder the situation, while his third brain took over the basic functions, such as vital systems, locomotion, and monitoring the conversation of his fellow section commanders. Damien, his comrade from the Seventeenth Cylon Aerospace Supremacy Wing, was lamenting the slow pace of development of Red series Raiders. So far the technology that the alien life form, known only as Count Iblis, had given them, had defied their efforts to replicate. The alien had promised that the Red Raider would play a pivotal role in the greatest war. Lucifer had always felt that Iblis spoke with hidden meanings. He said nothing, but in the back of his primary brain, he had the lingering suspicion that the war Iblis referred to was not the war that the Imperious Leader thought. Without any evidence, he could prove nothing, and speaking out against an ally that had produced the greatest fighter pilot and most advanced Raider prototype, would make him look like a traitor or a fool. Either of those labels would be a death warrant. He looked over at Damien as they walked. Damien was a newer model, less experienced in the politics of the Empire than he was, though he was also a fairly new model. Damien motioned out at the mega city, expressing his worry for the civilians with his theatrical gesture. "This is not going to go well, the percentages of success are low, and it will take our resources to make war, a war that there is no guarantee will gain us any solium. I fail to see how we benefit from war with the humans, surely only death and loss and suffering can result." Damien lamented. "Look at those beautiful models down there. They carry on in lovely productive ways, accepting the rationing of solium, knowing they may starve before long, but willing to sacrifice in order to ensure the following generations of Cylons will carry on in productive and fulfilling ways."  
"While I agree with much of what you say, Damien, there is little we can do. The Imperious Leader has decided to take us into war with the humans for better or worse."  
"I do not believe that the Empire will survive this turn of events without the help of the humans. We need them as allies now more than ever. Instead of fighting with them, we must go to them and make whatever treaty we can to get the solium and feed out citizens." Damien said stopping to place a hand on both Lucifer and their other friend, Draken's backs. The other IL model, Faust, nodded his agreement, though he was not necessarily included in the conversation, but he could not deny the logic of the other IL's. They were correct, but they would do as they were commanded, until such time as the Imperious Leader changed his mind, or was recycled. "Though I agree, I feel I must point out that we must develop a plan which will guarantee us at least six months of offensive operations. We have the solium to launch a remarkable attack, according to the plan that the Imperious Leader is transmitting to us, but beyond that, I cannot say what we will do. We do not have enough naval assets to defend against both the humans and the Moloch's, and that is exactly what we are being asked to do."  
"Faust is correct. We will not have to defend if we can convince the Imperious Leader to allow us to use solium bombs. The blasting of human cities off the face of their planets should force them to unconditional surrender. If we can strike at their colonies in one swift decisive strike, then we can press them into surrender quickly, and take their solium stocks and relieve our people." Lucifer agreed.  
"To do that, I calculate we will have to use a dangerously large percentage of our solium reserve. If we fail, we will not be able to make war on either front for quite a long time, if ever again. If we fail, we may expose ourselves vulnerable to both the Moloch's and the humans, and be defenseless. It may be we who are surrendering before this is over." Damien warned.  
"Indeed, but what choice do we have?" Lucifer said solemnly.  
"We have none, had the Moloch's not destroyed Opus 9, we could have pressed the Imperious Leader to reconsider, but we are faced with a dilemma. We cannot do what would be the safest thing, because we are commanded not to, so we must do the most dangerous thing, and do it we shall." Draken said as he turned to go his own way to his waiting shuttle.  
"And what shall we do if the humans discover our true intentions?" Damien asked.  
"I do not think they will. The humans seem capable of convincing themselves of anything. At this time, they are still under the illusion that their fifth fleet is still intact somewhere. They are convinced that we are truly going to make peace with them, and they are telling themselves that we wish them no ill will." Faust said with some glee. "These humans are so easily fooled."  
"These humans are simply ignorant of the true events and impact of Opus 9." Lucifer warned.

Chapter 2

The Gathering Storm

Third Shock Army, Seventh Imperial Armada

Faust sat in the back of the armored transport looking over the data pad with the Imperious Leaders plan of attack. He looked up at the trio of Gold Centurions and seemed to sigh. "We have about two weeks till we attack. The Imperious Leader is under the impression that we can train up fifty thousand troops for human gravity well combat in that time. I do not believe that we can do that."  
"It would be difficult to comply." One of the Gold Cylons agreed.   
"Perhaps the Imperious Leader has another plan to make it possible to obey this command." The second one agreed.  
"By your command." The third one asserted, not wishing to gamble his chances of a third brain away by speaking of the Imperious Leader with ANYTHING close to criticism or defeatism. The war was not something he was designed to control, he was only a mid level commander, and it was certainly not within his limited programming to think at levels as high as his Imperious Leaders.  
"What unit was honored with designing the master plan that our Imperious Leader has embraced?" The first unit asked.  
"It was an altered version of the plan designed by IL381." Faust said bitterly.  
"Wasn't that unit destroyed in the battle for Garilon 3?" The second unit asked shocked.  
"Yes, as a matter of fact 381 was utterly devastated." Faust said amused.   
"If I remember correctly, IL381 designed the battle plan for Garilon, the same battle plan that failed miserably and led to the death of his entire Shock Army and himself and his entire command staff, to the last unit." The third unit said, surprising the others, but he was willing to point out well-known facts, just not speak out against the Imperious Leader.  
"Indeed, so we must assume that the Imperious Leader had made major changes to the plan." Faust said sarcastically.  
"And who introduced this altered plan to our Imperious Leader?" The first Golden Cylon asked.  
"A new IL model, the one taking over in Lucifer's place." Faust said annoyed. He liked Lucifer, for an IL series, Lucifer was very straightforward and loyal. "I am told it is a unit designated IL770."  
"It would seem that this new IL unit has become more advanced than the entire command staff put together." The second Gold Unit said with what Faust recognized as sarcasm.

Planet Virgon, Just North of Port Harmony, Athena's Island  
Altitude 36,000 feet, Seven Miles North of Port Harmony

Grey ghost like shadows danced among the clouds. The sleek, shark like shapes were dangerous looking. The pilots were no less deadly, they were Colonial Warriors, and capable of incredible aggressive violence in or out of the cockpit. Though restrained, calm, and disciplined when dealing with others, they were the perfect deadly waters. On the surface, they were calm, placid, and friendly. Under the surface, however, they were a boiling sea of instant aggression and violence, the warrior poets. Though they were certainly wonderful with their families, their friends, they were more at home behind the stick, or behind the sights of a pistol or rifle.  
"Ranger, this is Arrow Leader with four chicks, we have visual on you." Jeff Slatterly was almost bored, long patrols over empty ocean were like torture to him. He yearned for action. He longed for combat. The Colonial Fleet was pretending they were still at peace with the chrome domes, but everyone knew that the Fifth Fleet was not going to the Molokai system to play patty cakes. Their silence was troubling, since the Fifth was under Commander Cain; it was unthinkable that they could have fallen at the hands of the Cylons. The hundred-year war was officially over, though the Cylons were still fighting the Moloch's. Slatterly had done well in the Hundred Year War, racking up an impressive seventy-two kills. That was not bad for a pilot with less than five thousand combat hours. He flew his two combat sorties a day six days a week for six years. Then the armistice ended that way of life. Now he was home, flying "CAP Flights" over empty ocean. He had been a member of the 347th Tactical Fighter Wing, and one of the leading aces. Now he was a Wing Leader for the 8th Air Superiority Wing for the Virgonian Defense Force. He was not sure how he felt about that. On one hand, it was nice to be home, to have peaceful skies to fly, and to know that the men he was flying with stood an excellent chance of going home at the end of the day. He dipped his wing a bit, looking at the coastline. There was home. There was his family. There was what he had fought for. There was his life.  
"Arrow Leader, hold your pattern, we have a priority flight coming through, maintain Angels thirty five and stand by, holding pattern Bravo sixteen." The ATC advised him. The VDF Carrier, Predator, CVN-56, was turning lazy circles just off the coast of Port Harmony. The Mega-Carrier was the largest of her kind. It massive flight deck was capable of launching four aircraft at a time, while recovering two others. She had a hanger deck capable of holding nearly a hundred and seventy aircraft and could store twenty more topside with almost no impediment to the flight deck operations. However, the aircraft and pilots of the Predator were not her only weapons. She also had an impressive task force that accompanied her everywhere. She also had an amazing number of antiaircraft turrets as well as the ability to fire off missiles and torpedoes.  
"Angels thirty five holding Bravo sixteen, aye sir." Jeff repeated the instruction so that the ATC knew he had received the order and understood it correctly. He banked to the left and dropped to thirty five thousand feet to assume a holding pattern.  
"ATC this is ferry flight Delta One, Lt. Coxley, I'm eleven miles out and have visual, can your LCO set ball?" A new voice asked over the tactical frequency. Jeff perked up at the statement. A female fighter pilot was unusual enough in the Colonial Fleet and even rarer in the VDF Navy. Women just did not seem interested in the combat and the danger of flying fighters during war. Since peace was only two years old, and the armistice was never signed, they were still nervous about joining. Still, he heard rumors that the Cylons were offering to sign a true peace treaty. He hoped rumors were true. It would be nice to know that the Cylons were really interested in peace.   
"Delta One, LSO says he has no visual on you, are you sure you're visual?" The ATC was trying to confirm the last request.  
"Affirmative ATC." Shannon was low on fuel and tired, she did not need this ATC or the LSO questioning her. "Id certainly like to see a meatball at some point before I over fly you." She said irritated.   
"Understood, call the ball." Predator ATC shrugged and transferred the control of the landing over to the LSO. The Landing Signal Officer was surprised, since the low ceiling as well as the foggy weather made it unlikely that anyone was seeing very far at all. In fact, the ships ATC had argued that it would be wise to ground all flight deck operations, including the launching and recovery of aircraft. To have a pilot claim they are in visual range far beyond what the ships weather officers all agreed was the visual limits, intrigued him, as well as irritated him. If this pilot was wrong, then he was going to chew their ass.  
Shannon called the ball as soon as it was lit up, and landed the CF-721 Fantan on the flight deck of the Predator as if she had done it a hundred times, trapping on the second wire. She smiled. It was a good trap and that was made all the more impressive since the three craft landing just after her either had to make a pass or trapped on the fourth or fifth wire, if at all. Two had to pull up and pass. One trapped early on the first wire because his wheels were so low they almost hit the end of the flight deck. The Jaguars were great all weather aircraft, but this really was some soupy weather. Even rain or night landings were less risky than ones made in foggy soup like this.  
She smiled as she passed the LSO's office later and received a "well done" from him. She thought the look on his face was priceless when she told him it was her very first trap on a real landing deck. He did not say anything, but he raised an eyebrow. That was enough for her. She was a new pilot, still trying to find a spot in a combat squadron. The admiralty was not on her side however. She had bucked tradition already, being the first known lesbian admitted to the officers training academy in the Colonial Fleet. There was a huge uproar made from the Scorpios and even some from the Librians, but in the end, they could not find a significant reason that she should not be allowed to serve in the Colonial Warriors. While the Colonial Fleet was not against the alternative lifestyles, there were still many homophobic officers, as well as just plain bigots that influenced the typically progressive and open-minded Warrior Corps. Traditionally, if a person could perform their duties and were of good character, they were admitted. Though there was some question as to Shannon's character, in the end, even the closed-minded bigots could find no excuse to hide behind that would prevent her from doing her duty, and the question of her character was never pressed, since she was known for one snappy remark made off the record to one of the most ardent bigots. It was at a formal dinner, where she was receiving a commendation for graduating at the top of her class from Fighter Weapons School. The bigot in question had remarked how he disapproved of her choice of bed partners, and how that questionable choice made her less than ideal to wear the uniform of the Colonial Warriors. Shannon, who was never one to be pushed around, had replied that if choice of mates as a way to measure a persons fitness is how the Commander wished to proceed, that she felt sorry for him, as she had seen his wife, and felt that the Commander was in bigger trouble than she was. There was nearly a scuffle, but nervous laughter and some well-timed entertainment saved the night. Of course, the religious wacko's did try to impugn it in their zeal to score religious points for their respective churches. The Colonial Fleet, however, was not subject to the whims of the various churches, owing their allegiance only to the Fleet Admiralty. The Admiralty showed their wisdom and she was admitted by the slimmest of margins, which opened the door for others.  
Getting into the Fleet was tough, but getting into the combat squadron was even tougher. Since her flight school, she had been put in a reserve squadron, if it could be called a squadron, ferrying new aircraft to their squadrons, then going back and getting the next assignment. She was sick of the waste of her considerable flying skills, though she was getting a great education in flying just about every aircraft that the Virgonian Defense Force employs. It would do her well, since after her initial two years of service in "the fleet", she would be assigned to a permanent squadron in her home planets defense forces. She was a Virgonian native, and so she knew that the various squadrons she was visiting were the various squadrons she might very well be flying with. She just needed to tolerate the reserve squadron for another year, and then she could almost certainly be flying her very own fighter.

COLONIAL FLEET INTELLIGENCE OFFICE

Planet Caprica: Monte Claire Radio Observatory.  
1/7/48 1500

Major Delangelo turned up the tri-d to hear the speech that was being broadcast on all of the major news networks. It was possibly the biggest news broadcast in recent history. The Supreme Cylon Command had not hinted at what it was about, but back channels had confirmed that the odds were heavily in favor of it being a formal request for truce. A formal cease-fire was over due, since the actual war with the Cylons had ceased to be a shooting war nearly ten years ago. There was no actual armistice however, and that point had been hotly contested in the last election, and cost the careers of several political magistrates. Therefore, to say that this was the biggest event in a decade was no lie or exaggeration at all.

He hated to turn the channel from his favorite soap opera, which was also the most popular show on the space channels, but being a leading intelligence officer, he certainly felt it was a good idea to see history being made.

His office mate, Captain Ross, had brought in some pizza and ambrosia, which was definitely breaking regulations, but it was far after hours, and they were breaking regulations already, by tuning the top secret, only to be used to spy on highly classified Cylon transmissions, type DRADIS dish to the local tri-d satellite and using the crypto gear to descramble the signal. Ross had figured out the algorithm of the tri-d station while eating lunch, just as something to do, and since then they had been watching "Star Ocean" every Friday since. So instead of watching their weekly series, they were going to see history made.

"You think its going to be another Cylon white wash?" Ross asked. The office betting pool was a ten to one landslide that the Cylons were simply going to say they were willing to discuss a formal treaty, which seemed to be the commonly accepted mind set.

"Most likely it will be something more. The amount of noise generated on their side doesn't seem like its going to be just another empty verbal joust." Delangelo said seriously. He looked over at the younger Ross, who was already taking off his jacket and getting comfortable with his feet up and a glass of ambrosia in his hand.

On the tri-d was the command Cylon, an IL series unit. "People of the 12 Colonies of Man." It began in English. "Allow me to begin by making a brief statement. After which, I am sorry to say, I will not be able to answer your questions, however. We will transmit a full report to all your major news outlets, as well as to all of your political officers." It said in the typically calm and oddly disturbing voice that the IL series used.

"Your Colonial Fleet Admirals have often spoken publicly about how the Cylon Republic has done nothing to prove its peaceful intentions. At this time, it is my sad duty to report to your people, the Moloch Empire has attacked and destroyed your 5th Fleet in an attempt to sojourn the upcoming peace accords. Naturally, they will attempt to place the blame on the Cylon Republic, and we anticipate that. It would be a disastrous blow to the image of the Cylon Republic, and so I have the honor to announce that the Cylon Republic is going to show our desire for peace is real. To prove our intentions, we must avoid the 'mutual destruction' of our people, we are about to take a bold step, one we challenge the Colonial Fleet to match." The IL series Cylon said with perfect clarity. Ross and Delangelo both looked at each other. The Cylons had always spoken in terms of absolutes. This was a huge change for them, to admit mutual destruction. This was beyond the curve when it came to Cylon admissions. Delangelo raised an eyebrow; he had never expected to hear the Cylons admit to the chances of destruction as a race if they continued to make war with the Colonies. Ross put his glass down and was no longer eating the pizza. He took his feet off the table and sat closer, as if he were going to see something that would not be visible otherwise.

"It is obvious to any sentient being, that the actions of the Cylon Republic are defensive only, and that we are a merciful people, with respect and admiration for our Human neighbors. It would be tantamount to insanity to continue to fight with your people, and for your people to make war on us. The war already became dangerously close to mass solium bombing of civilian populations centers, on both sides, and indeed, such a horrible fate did occur to our peaceful research post on Opus 9. Such bombing would lead to cellular decomposition on a mass scale. This cannot be allowed to happen." It said making what seemed to be a gesture akin to hands held in prayer. Delangelo snorted at the effect, realizing that it was obviously a manipulation on the IL's part to evoke a spiritual response from the human civilians watching. It knew that the council of twelve was mostly civilian in nature, and that spirituality drove their responses, so that gesture was sure to score points there.

"As I said earlier, the Cylon Republic is taking actions to prove that the destruction of your fleet was NOT of our doing, but was a trick by the Moloch's to inflame the population of your race towards the peaceful Cylon civilians. To this end, the Cylon Republic is going to begin a drastic fleet reduction. I would like to announce, that at this time, the Cylon Republic is going to perform a reduction in force, unlike the false proposals that your Colonial Fleet Admiralty have dangled in mock attempts to paint the Cylon Republics forces as being unwilling to draw down. Indeed, as your admiralty claims to be seeking peace, they build three new Battlestars, as they claim they desire peace; they arm Sentinel satellites with 60-megaton solium missiles, aimed at the hearts of peaceful Cylon civilian population centers. They claim to want arms reductions, and claim they are doing so by withdrawing their obsolete Harbinger missiles, but then they replace them with far more powerful solium missiles. This makes any real arms reduction talks useless, as verification means nothing when everything counted is simply replaced by weapons that are more lethal. How ironic, to call that arms reduction, in fact it seems almost insulting to us." The IL was good, it was true that the admiralty had proposed false reductions and had hoped the Cylons would not find out. It would be difficult, if not impossible to spin this in a positive light. Delangelo was glad he was not in charge of the admiralty house. "That is what your admiralty offers as peace initiatives, but we, the honest and honorable Cylon Republic will now show what real reductions are."

Ross turned up the sound and sat back, he was stunned and drawn in, much to his chagrin. He knew he was being manipulated, as were all who watched this broadcast, but he was teased enough to want to know what the Cylons were going to do. This damned IL Cylon had teased, making many references to their intentions, and was dragging it out to make the people watching desire it as well. It was a brilliant speech so far. Whatever series wrote it, they were light years ahead of anything the Cylons had written before.

Ross looked over at Delangelo; he was both admiring this IL as well as growing angry that it was not yet saying what the entire speech was leading up to.

"In three days, when our first and second fleets have reached ports in our home system, we are going to mothball an entire class of Basestar, and the reduction of all solium based missiles above the 15 megaton warhead capacity over a period of two years, and that we welcome the Colonial Fleet admiralty to monitor the reductions. We challenge the Colonial Fleet to retire their Battlestars, as well as to reduce the warhead yield on their Colony Defense Weapons. The Cylon Republic is also willing to agree to a third party to supervise the reduction of the Colonial Fleet and its solium missiles, if the admiralty is not willing to allow our own experts to do so. The third party supervisors can be discussed and agreed to in talks after the peace accords are signed. To prove our good intentions, however, the reductions on the Cylon Republic Fleet will begin regardless of whether the Colonial Fleet agrees to these terms; so that no sentient and enlightened race can make the claim that the Cylon Republic did NOT make an honest and generous gesture." Ross stood suddenly, as did Delangelo. Delangelo was sure that there were a number of admirals standing, enraged, amazed, astounded, and definitely outraged. This was not going to be stopped, there was momentum here, and this was a pivotal moment. The elimination of an entire class of Basestar was big news.

"Beginning today, we are decommissioning the class of Basestar which your Fleet calls the 'Marauder' class, which are the equivalence as your own Columbia class Battlestar. The Cylon Republic currently has seven Basestars; of the type, we call 'Shield', which you call 'Marauder'. We would, of course, hope that your Colonial Fleet would match us ship for ship, beginning with the ones you call Columbia, Rycon, Atlantia, Pegasus, Galactica, and Pacifica, though the Pacifica is yet to be fully commissioned." The IL said raising his hands, again in the prayer position. "The time for talking is over; this is a time for action. I will let your admiralty continue with their hawkish rhetoric, or you, the people that control your war machine, can force them to comply and reciprocate the actions of the Cylon Republic. Thank you for your time, and we pray to the Gods that the Lords of Kobol lead you to peace." The IL unit turned and walked off stoically, as if he was royalty, which is exactly how he was being treated now.

"Well, I will be…. What the hell is that?" Delangelo asked still not believing what he had just heard. Ross had abandoned his chair entirely and was rewinding the DDR to replay the speech. He wanted to be sure he had heard what he had heard.

"Yea… I guess we better get busy taking that speech apart, you know that the admiralty is going to want something to throw back, otherwise we could be seeing a parade of Battlestars heading towards Caprica Ship Yards for decommissioning." Ross agreed. Almost immediately, the comms began to chatter, as copies of the build down proposal were being received by the admirals as well as the civilian news agencies. Even then, they were getting a copy sent via Mil-Net. Delangelo began to read through the plan, trying to pick apart anything that looked dicey. "By the Lords, Ross, this looks good. I mean, this looks workable!" Delangelo said excited. "We could be looking at a real honest peace plan here."

"Good grief, you think so Dave?" Ross asked amazed.

"Yes, this is scary, it's good, and its everything we could ask for, it gives up more than it asks." Delangelo said grinning. "If the admiralty doesn't go for this, there will be hell to pay. Even if it is their oldest and most obsolete class of Basestars, they are reducing their fleet, with this mothballing of Capital ships, and they are right, we would be maintaining a number of ships in that class while they decommission them. It's a no win for the admiralty, but if they agree, it might work."

Planet Ishtar, Hyperion System, Cylon Empire

"By your command." Lucifer said coldly to the Imperious Leader. He tried as well as he could to be cool and professional, but the report he was about to give, was far from what he wished to be reporting.

"I am waiting, what is the readiness of our attack forces?" The Imperious Leader demanded.

"The new model Centurions are still being trained. They need more time, more training. If we can have another three months, I believe we stand to increase the odds of our success by half. At this time, however, I do not believe they are trained well enough."

"That is unacceptable. Who is at fault?"

"That would be the IL unit Mobius." Lucifer said blaming an older model that he had never liked anyhow. "He is too cautious and does not commit his troops to training operations that are dangerous enough to train them fast enough. He coddles them, as if they are his expensive toy soldiers. They are deadly tools of war and he does not appreciate that they are built to be placed into combat. He treats them as if they are somehow important beyond that level. Because of this, we will not have enough elite level troops, and I advise a revision of our battle plan." Lucifer advised. He knew things were risky at best, but if the Imperious Leader would agree to some revisions, maybe, just maybe, there would be enough of the Cylon Navy left, to defend the Empire if this, no, when this disaster was over.

"I have spoken with Mobius; he tells me that his troops are at ninety eight percent efficiency." The Imperious Leader said questioningly.

"It is not uncommon that command staff tell their Imperious Leader what the Imperious Leader wishes to hear, but you trust me to tell you what you ask, not what you want to hear. If you doubt me, you may replace me with…" Lucifer said lying quickly, but knowing that the Imperious Leader harbored a deep distrust of his command staff.

"No, you are right Lucifer, I should know that there is no way that Mobius could have that high of readiness when we have been rationing our solium and he has fifteen percent fewer troops than he is supposed to have. It's a lie, another fraking lie." The Imperious Leader stood. "I am going to order his recycling. He has outlived his usefulness to the Empire. I will turn his command over to Balthazar."

"By your command." Lucifer agreed.

"He will be responsible for the outer planets, Virgon, Scorpion and Aquarilon." The Imperious Leader was already altering the plans in his head as he spoke. He had a far more advanced second and third brain, and could perform computations faster than any two or three IL series units, though he played stupid, a tactic he employed to see what sort of machinations his command staff were up to, what games they thought they could play and get away with. "You will alter the plan as follows, take the best trained troops for the assault on the innermost planets, and leave the outer planets, the ones with little or no military defense, to the least prepared troops, that way we have the force needed to secure victory on the most important targets. If we fail on Caprica, Aerilon, or Tauron, we may as well fail on ALL of them. The other planets are nothing if we destroy their military, shipping, and intelligence headquarters."

"By your command."

COLONIAL FLEET INTELLIGENCE OFFICE

Planet Caprica: Monte Claire Radio Observatory.  
1/9/48 0800

Delangelo sipped his coffee as he looked over the reports. Ross was sleeping at his desk, having not gone home last evening. Both men had agreed to keep 24-hour watch over the DRADIS as well as the intercept/decrypt gear. After the Cylon speech, things had been fairly quiet. The Cylons were indeed pulling the power plants out of the Basestars, just as they said.

"Ross…. Wake up, did you see this?" Delangelo was puzzling over a report that Cylon Faraday Modules were being rationed. It made sense in a basic way, since they had as much as admitted that they were low on solium, but it did not make sense to ration the Faraday gear.

"Hmmmm?" Ross said trying to wake up. "Oh, hi Dave. Yes sir, I saw that last thing last night. I'm not sure I would classify that as interesting."

"I would. It fits a pattern. I was suspicious of that sudden recall of their Marauder class Basestars, and how they began to tear the Faraday Chambers out of them. Think about it Mark. What was the biggest problem with the Marauder?"

"They require more energy from the solium power plants than the Faraday chambers can dissipate, which makes them easy to track with DRADIS. Their power plants tend to saturate the Faraday chamber walls and make them useless, or moderately radioactive. They have been forced to either run at sixty percent power capacity, or risk easy detection. Yes, we know that… oh hell, you don't think…"

"That they replaced those Faraday chambers with new ones under our very noses?"

"We need to warn the admiralty." Ross said looking for the codebook, which held the command line code for Top Secret.

Just then, the board lit up with emergency calls on all levels of traffic.

Chapter Three

The Chrome Berets

Dargon Sector

CFS 191 Acropolis Guided Missile Cruiser

1/9/48 0820

Dim lighting and subdued sound gave the effect that the ship was sneaking along. Ships DRADIS Officer Lieutenant Harold Day was on his last hour of shift. The six-month cruise near jump point HPY-8715, monitoring all jump activity, was coming to a close. He was tired, bored, and horny. It was becoming difficult to stay awake, when suddenly the board lit up like some odd fertility celebration on Virgon. He had never been to one himself, but it was on his list of things to do before he died. The sudden sight of eleven Basestars reminded him of that list, since he was fairly sure it was a list he was about to finish, or fail to even begin. He opened the emergency comm. and had almost enough time for a final meaningful thought as he screamed one last breath.

Nine Cylon tankers followed the Basestars through the jump point. They proceeded on, without slowing, as the Basestars paused to launch their fighter compliments. The only fighters remaining behind, with the Basestars were the security escort. All the others were about to begin what was to be a suicide mission, to destroy the human Colonies. Behind the Tankers jumped in the rest of the Cylon Assault Fleet. The fifteen landing barges, thirty-seven planetary assault cruisers, and their escorting task forces numbered nearly a hundred ships.

Immediately one of the landing barges burst into explosive bits. The Cylon escorts began to scan the surrounding area for the cause, but it took only a few minutes to realize that the landing barge had jumped in right on top of a Colonial Cruiser. The explosion of the Cruisers solium missiles, as well as the solium bombs of the landing barge vaporized the two ships. The five surrounding ships were also vaporized, leaving the assault fleet short vital ships that would be needed later, but were irreplaceable. Fleet Commander, IL-219, also called Balthazar, began to revise the assault as he realized what bad luck they had befallen. He informed IL-770, also known as Satan, that he would only have one landing barge and a very small escort fleet for his attack on Virgon, which was the least challenging of all the Colonies, since it was referred to, by the Colonies themselves, as a peaceful resort planet, with a low indigenous population localized on a few small islands. This posed no challenge, so it was on the bottom of the list when it came to priority of asset allocation. Still, Satan had a little twist on the plan he had devised and was now about to implement it. He summoned his commanders and explained the plan, went over every detail, made sure they understood it. As they left, he merely waved his hand at their customary "By Your Command." Satan had already assumed that victory would indeed be by his command.

CVS-33 Colonial Corvette Defiance

1/9/48 0955

The first officer alerted Captain Ronald LeCroix of the DRADIS contact immediately. The faint contact was well inside the jump point, which made it an Alpha One priority. However, the Captain had made it quite clear that he was not to be disturbed unless it was his wife calling him. First Lieutenant Ryan Domiano was excited, yet controlled as he informed the Captain that there was some faint Cylon contact on the Colonial DRADIS near the jump point, and that it was inbound.

"Send off two recon shuttles, make sure what we are seeing isn't just a leaky microwave relay bleeding off signal." Captain LeCroix decided. Cylons would not be in this location box without some kind of warning from the Destroyer that was assigned to patrol the jump point. Since no warning was given, it had to be something other than that. He went back to his law books, trying to find some reason that he could argue that his wife should not receive half his estate just because he had a little something on the side with a Socialator. Surely, there was some kind of law that would prevent that kind of thing. After all, it was only a few times, that they had evidence of.

"Begging the Captains pardon, but the relay leak has changed course and is on intercept course with us Captain." The first officer said sarcastically. He wasn't impressed with the half-assed response that Captain LeCroix had given and was not going to merely perform some asinine exercise in futility because the skipper was fraking some whore.

"You heard me say that it was a relay satellite leaking signal didn't you sir?" Captain LeCroix said standing and walking out to the bridge.

"Aye sir, but your leaky satellite seems to be firing on us!" the Radio Intercept Officer announced looking at his board where Cylon beam weapons were being readied. The massive Cylon barges were able to fire far beyond the limited range of the small Corvette. All ready the Corvette was in danger, yet they were nowhere near within range of their own defense cannons. The ship shuddered with the impact. The light energy reflective shielding failed with the first shot, being designed more for taking on similar sized ships, not ships that were dozens of times its size. "Incoming sir!" the RIO screamed.

"Hard to port, shift power from all systems to engines and shield!" LeCroix ordered. Ryan flipped circuit breakers in a memorized pattern, trying to get the shields to rise at least one more time before the capacitors melted into slag.

"Impact in five seconds." The RIO warned.

Ryan kicked the relays again, his hands pushing the assembly back down, into place. He felt his body grow weightless as the life support systems were backed down to allow the additional power to assist raising the shields. All the heat and air in the ship would mean nothing if they were just particle sized atoms in a few seconds.

LeCroix pushed the maneuvering thrusters himself, the helmsman fighting with the controls to bring the 280-ton Corvette around on a dime. It was desperation, and the crew knew it was only buying them a few more seconds of life. If not this shot, surely the next one.

"Energy discharge has missed Captain, another shot… impact in twelve seconds."

"Target the energy beam, fire!" He commanded. The ships gunner tested himself with the shot, firing at another ships beam. It was never even considered, an impossible shot. He pulled the trigger, nothing.

"I have no guns skipper!" the gunner screamed in terror.

"Son of a…" was all that was left to say as the colonial Corvette took a hit in the starboard side, raking the starboard side engine, gun turret, and the life support systems. Tell-tales erupted all around the little craft. The five-man crew were thrown into darkness, their ship tossed by the mind-boggling amount of energy discharged by the blast. The Defiance began to tumble, the debris of what was her starboard side wing and engine dangled behind, while circuitry sparked and liquids bubbled away, like gasses venting from a dying ship, as that's exactly what they were.

Planet Virgon, Port Harmony Military Base

1/9/48 1300

Lt. General Rolf Gustaf looked up from his daily report. The situation room outside his office was now blue. That meant that there was something happening somewhere. He pushed away his lunch and the few reports that he had been picking through.

"What do you have for me Deacon?" he asked his second in command, Brigadier General, Pavel Adrovoposivich. Pavel was referred to by his short name, Andy, or Deacon, after the call sign he flew with during the Cylon War. Deacon was a short man by stature, with no hair left. He had a hawkish face, which was commonly described as unattractive. His eyes were small and deep behind brooding brows that seemed to be trying to make up for the lack of hair elsewhere on his head. He had a curled sneer on his face at most times and the sheer amount of nose hair that he never bothered to trim made him look like he was eating a hamster. However, for all his faults, he was a tactical genius. Rolf sipped a cup of stale coffee as he waited for his XO's evaluation.

"We have had seven medium and large transports land on the outer islands. They are all using proper codes, but we never get that much traffic at once, it seems suspicious to me sir. Then we lost contact with the island of Medea, and then we saw something that looked similar to a satellite rocket launch. I'm diverting any aircraft we have in the area to go check it out." Deacon told him. Rolf rubbed his neck, feeling some sticky perspiration run down his back. This was damned queer. If he didn't know better he would swear it sounded like one of Major Catlett's invasion simulations.

"Inform me of the situation, I'm going to call Eric. This smacks of his handiwork." Rolf said putting a hand on Deacons shoulder.

Planet Virgon, 350 nautical miles North of Port Harmony, Athena's Island  
CVN-56 Predator

1/9/48 1320

Major Slatterly turned his flight of five Jaguars to the North. The ATC had assigned him the task of a fast over flight of the island base on Medea. The sleek little Jaguars didn't really have the range for that mission, but the Predator had tasked two Buffalo refuel craft to top off their tanks on the return trip. Jeff lowered the visor on his helmet and activated the HUD for a clear look. The night vision equipment on the old Jaguar was not the best, and even in the best of conditions was only "mostly" effective, whatever that meant. He wasn't sure exactly what "mostly effective" meant to the engineers who designed the HUD, but to the poor bastard flying the Jag, it meant they could see about fifty miles of dim, greenish, not very well defined air. If they pointed the nose down, they saw about the same amount of water. If they climbed, they saw nothing, as the camera that made the system possible was too primitive to distinguish the dim light of the stars from the black background of space. He toggled the selector of his weapons board to activate the seeker head of his port side inboard station. It held his only Shatter missile. The seeker head on the missile was top of the line and the color CRT screen recently installed in the left corner of the dashboard actually provided a better picture, though it was like looking through a straw. Still he was able to make out details as fine as a family of whales clearing their blowholes.

He directed his flight lower, to a mere 2000 feet, and they adjusted speed to just over mach 1.4, which was the maximum speed they could fly without burning too much fuel and failing to make it back to the refuel craft. They made their pass from the South, banking slightly to the East.

"We have multiple SAM launch, looks like AMSTAN missiles." His wingman yelped quickly. "Those are Cylon missiles sir."

"No shit." Jeff said bitterly. "Predator, this is Arrow Leader, we have incoming Cylon Missiles." He reported. "Break formation, and perform evasive maneuvers, good luck!" he said as the flight broke up into individual pilots trying each, to escape the highly advanced and truly lethal AMSTAN missiles. Jeff banked to the left, trying to draw the missile into an almost straight intercept path. Since he was flying at an angle to it, it would have to perform an impossibly tight turn to get him.

The thrust indicator suddenly began to bounce as the low level of fuel left in his aircraft began to have trouble feeding the hungry engines. He felt the starboard side engine trying to flame out, then the impact of the missile. It threw him forward and to the left. His body went numb and he blacked out.

His wingman dived below him, the missile chasing him didn't make the course correction and instead slammed into the rear of Major Slatterly's aircraft, detonating seconds after the first. Jeff had ejected as the second missile detonated, and the explosion burned him as he flew through the flames. He screamed in agony, it was a nightmare as the very air around him erupted into an inferno.

The two surviving Jaguars dropped to a hundred feet off the ocean waves and raced directly South, their engines flared as the after burners kicked in and they burned off fuel as if they had a tank full to spare.

The ferry flights were getting old. Already she had delivered four Fantans to the Predator. This was the first night flight for her, however, and the trap was going to be exciting. She had made friends with the LSO and the CAG, having earned their respect in the first of her flights. They admired the Fantan for its exotic looks and its amazing speed and range. It was in all ways a superior craft to the older but still highly versatile Jaguar. Anticipating a quiet flight, she had unbuckled her helmet and air mask, flying at a low altitude of three thousand feet. The sudden break in radio silence scared her enough that she jumped. The Fantan bobbled from her reaction, but she fought it back under control.

"Predator to ferry flight, is that you Wraith?" the ATC asked. She grinned at the call sign she had received from them, having landed the ghostly grey Fantan in a heavy fog that first flight, like a wraith out of the mist.

"Affirmative ATC, I'm about an hour out, over." She replied calmly.

"Are you flying slick?" the ATC asked. Previous flights she had flown "combat load" since it was easier to ferry the ordinance for the Fantans in the same flight as the craft, it had been decided to do so. That saved extra aircraft having to make a trap carrying explosives in the back of their cargo bays.

"Negative Predator, standard combat load." She replied now gaining a sense of urgency from the way the ATC sounded.

"Stand by for targeting information." The ATC ordered. She pressed the mission uplink button, allowing the Predator to talk to her aircraft, telling it the mission to be performed.

Shannon tightened her harness and buckled her helmet on as she lowered the night vision display over her eyes. To her, the night was now as if it was day. She saw everything that was out there. Then the mission computer added dotted lines to the display, showing her projected flight path and began to read out the course she was to take.

"Wraith, do you think you can intercept a satellite launch vehicle?" the ATC asked.

"Aye sir, but I have only one RocShasta Mod Delta on my outer Port Pylon." She said informing the ATC that this would be a one-target mission. She didn't have a second missile of the short, air launched RocShasta variety. The ASAT missile was old, but still quite serviceable. It had a relatively low orbital range, which meant that the aircraft launching it had to be able to climb higher than the old Jaguar was capable of, but the Fantan had no problem there. She ignited the after burners and the Fantan threw her back into the seat like she was punched in the chest. The flat sleek little fighter accelerated to its top speed of mach 3.2 in a little under three minutes. While that would be no cause for astonishment, it would be noted that it was also climbing from three thousand feet to a hundred seventy five thousand feet at the same time. At this altitude, the Fantan was literally between atmosphere and space. While it wasn't truly trans-atmospheric, it came about as close as could be without actually BEING so. The engines could operate outside the atmosphere, and it could, under certain circumstances attain orbit, the full ordinance load it was carrying at the time prevented that, not because it could not exceed the altitude, but because to do so would be foolish, as the weapons outside the craft would surely detonate upon re-entry.

Shannon flipped the weapons board to yellow hot, the initial stage to launching a RocShasta, which because of its solium based warhead, was treated in the same reverence as a nuclear warhead. She waited for the codes from Predator to cycle up the solium/alumarium mixture, which would make the solium highly unstable, and thus, incredibly powerful, as powerful as a 30 megaton nuclear type weapon. That was an amazing amount of explosive power for a missile not much larger than a modern day Earth Exocet missile. The board signaled that it was red hot and she pressed the firing stud. The missile dropped from the launch rail and then its engine built thrust and the scramjet pushed the missile forward at mach 5 and out of her sight.

Shannon immediately turned the Fantan away from the target. The blast would be immense; a satellite launch vehicle would be large, and full of fuel. The ASAT missile was actually over kill, but it was the only type of ASAT she had available. The RocShasta was actually more of an anti-starship design, but was modified, in the mod delta for anti-satellite use. The warhead was reduced in size by half and the fuel load was reduced by 75 since it was launched by an aircraft not a ground-based launcher. The effect was that four of the mod delta variety could be produced for the cost of one mod alpha.

She saw the glow behind her of the satellite detonating, and smiled. She had her first kill. Not bad for a girl that was being spoken of in only the worst ways. Shannon grinned, as she turned to head for a refuel craft. She wasn't sure why she had just shot down a satellite, but it didn't matter to her. Surely the CAG would explain it all to her after she landed.

Medea Island, 500 miles from Port Harmony, Athena's Island

1/9/48 0230

Sergeant Kyle Pritchard didn't have long to wait. He liked it that way, things happen fast in the armored corps. He was a third generation tanker, having driven the same model his father had driven. Now he was a tank commander, and in charge of not only his own tank, but the tank to his right and slightly behind him.

He pushed the top hatch open and looked outside. Sure, he could see more through the tanks optics, but he wanted to see what the Cylons were driving with his own eyes. The HT-93 Comet tank had excellent optics and a powerful 135 mm smoothbore gun with the ability to fire the Pilum anti-tank missile from its gun like a regular round. That versatility gave it an edge that was the only factor that made the Comet the primary armored vehicle of the VDF. It was light enough to traverse the soft ground, reasonably armored, but incredibly versatile.

Kyle pushed his baseball cap back, looking through some high tech optics that he raised from his command pouch. They didn't look like the famous Gorgon tank that they had trained to fight. These looked like the older Titan model. He counted ten of them, and knew it was going to be a hell of a fight. His small tank company had only eight operational tanks, since it was never in the battle doctrine of the VDF to expect an assault on Medea. There was nothing here, just the solium mine and some stock piled fuel. The real fuel depot was on Port Harmony, by the military base. This was hardly a target worth committing a large force to take, yet he was facing down a superior force, and his command hut was already burning, along with his tank platoons commanders. He targeted the first tank, fired, and was awarded with the plume of fire as the Pilum found its mark, and the tank detonated, flipping over entirely. His second shot went wide, and he decided it was time to move.

He fell back to a secondary line of fighting positions, and targeted what he believed to be the command vehicle. It also went wide, and he was now out of missiles. He switched to gun targeting, and his loader selected a fin stabilized armor piercing depleted duralinium shaped charge, or FSAPDDSC round. It hit the Titan taking off the tread on the left side and causing the tank to turn sharply into a tree. The tree didn't make out so well, but it didn't work out for the tank either, as it high centered and was now on a strange tilt that the Cylons inside seemed confused by.

A detonation above him shoved him through the hatch. His body was pushed through before he had time to pull his arms in, and pain shot through his brain as he realized that his left arm was twisted in a horrific and grotesque angle. His right arm was severed at the elbow and was spraying blood onto the hull of the turret, in some macabre artwork from the mind of a lunatic. He tried to scream but felt his body refuse to move, having had his back snapped between the shoulders. His legs were now lying across the glowing firing chamber of the main gun, and the smell of burning flesh filled his nose. His loader and gunner were both climbing out escape hatches, and he heard them screaming in pain, one having received shrapnel through his visor.

Outside the tank, the scene was like a horror story gone terribly wrong. The small town which housed the mineworkers was ablaze. A round had impacted a hill near the church where many of the workers families were hiding. Like some scene from a horror novel, the round had devastated the hill, throwing the coffins of buried bodies through the windows of the church, making shrapnel of the human remains, and killing many of the family members with the pieces of their own dead. Kyle was lucky not to have seen it, since his own family died that way.

The rest of the tank column fell back to their final firing positions, all of them now firing on the run, something that the Comet was good at. The older Titans were now at the disadvantage, and the momentum shifted ever so slightly to the Colonials favor, but the numbers were still on the Cylons side, and in the end, the two-hour battle resolved with heavy casualties on the Cylons side, but a total decimation of the Colonials. The stunned handful of survivors fled into the hills in terror.

Chapter 4

The end of the beginning, the beginning of the end

Medea Island, 500 miles from Port Harmony, Athena's Island

1/9/48 0300

Jeff watched the two Jaguars scream off, yelling at them to slow down, to reduce their heat signature, and to conserve fuel. Then as the pain from the first and second-degree burns began to throb over his arm, leg, and part of his chest, he quit worrying about them, and focused on himself.

The cool water of the ocean felt good on his body, the burned flight suit was able to soak up enough cool clear water to keep the pain at bay until he reached the tree line. He checked his equipment. The emergency radio was in good shape, as was the survival kit, though the chocolate bars his wife had insisted he always carry had melted from the explosion.

At five feet seven, Jeff was not a large man, but he was extremely well toned, as were the pilots of the 8th ASW. He picked up the survival kit and moved farther into the tree line, knowing there would be Cylons in the area soon. They surely had coast watchers set up, or would soon, and they would not have missed the parachute drop if they did. He figured he had a fifty fifty chance of escape.

Behind a tree cluster, he stripped from the burnt flight suit and checked his injuries. His back hurt, but that was probably from the twisting of the aircraft from the missile hit, but he was walking and moving, so it was not critical at the moment. He had red burns along his left side from the flash fire that seemed to grow out of thin air after the missile hit. His jaw had a nasty cut from the chinstrap of his helmet. Other than that, he felt as if he was in good enough shape for a man who had just been blown out of the sky.

Fleet Strategic Space Command  
Planet Aerilon

The office clerk of General Marcos Bosnaric shifted in his folding metal chair as he waited for the General to leave the office. The reports from Virgon and Aqualarion were disturbing. There was a lack of information as to the cause, but it seemed that the jump point near Hyperion was now unguarded, and there was a massive wall of radio and DRADIS interference as far in the system as Aqualarion. No one was sure why, or how. Also, the Fleet Training Platform Avalon had suddenly flown off, which was highly unusual since it was supposed to be a stationary platform on the outer rim of the Colonies, where Colonial Warrior cadets could learn the basics of flying and landing a Viper aboard a Battlestar, without the distractions of home. He looked up asking the Gods for some kind of sign as to what kind of day it was going to be, when the building shook violently.

Sergeant Mike Holmberg, clerk of General Marcos Bosnaric, crawled over the slightly tilted floor and looked out the window. He gasped at the sight of a huge fireball rising over where the Fleets DRADIS dishes were placed. He knew that without them, the fleet was essentially blind. Those billion cubit dishes were the Fleets eyes and ears, and now they were severely disabled.

General Bosnaric bolted from the office, the door slamming so hard its brightly polished brass knob embedded itself in the wall. He looked over at his aid, who was crouched down below the lip of the window, in a good position of cover and concealment. The General decided it might be prudent and chose to crouch down along with him, a decision that spared his life.

The windows suddenly imploded from the strafing run of a Cylon Raider. The energy bolts had hit just below the window, which was lucky since had they hit the windows dead on, no one would have survived. Bosnaric felt glass bite him in the cheek and hands, where the cloth of his uniform did not cover him. He looked over and saw his aid holding his face, flesh was dangling from his fingers where the destroyed face of his handsome young aid was now shredded by the glass implosion. Marcos ran to his aid, holding him in comfort as he tried to find a way out. Smoke was filling the hallway as fires erupted in places throughout the building. Walls creaked as the structure threatened to give way, the supporting members that made the building so strong were warning of their impending failure.

Marcos guided Mike down the hallway to a set of emergency stairs, which they used to get to the ground floor. Then he helped his blinded aid through the panicked crowds, to an aid station, which was not yet hit. It wasn't until then he allowed his mind to comprehend what he was seeing. The base was fully burning, with the craters of solium bombs, which had rained down from Cylon bombers. They were large craters, littering the runways and hangers. He saw a few Mk2F Vipers lift off a makeshift runway that was formerly the parade grounds, but one was killed immediately after skids up, and the other not long after, before he even got a shot off. In the distance he saw at least three scramble squadrons of Mk2F's forming up for attack or defense, he wasn't sure, but a cloud of at least ten to twelve full wings of Cylon Raiders swooped in and broke up the formations, chasing the Vipers down in one's and two's and killing them. The Mk2F didn't seem capable of defending itself, much less the base. He wished, for all his worth that those had been Jaguars. He took a moment to admit that that loony Major from Virgon was right all along about the Mk2F.

Marcos knew that this was going to be his responsibility, this was his legacy. He had set up the greatest failure of Mankind, just to score some political points, and save cubits on fighters. He knelt in a pool of dark liquid, holding his head. This was real, it was a Cylon invasion, and they had been caught with their pants down, and their hands holding their junk. Over the headset he wore he heard flash intercept reports of similar attacks on all the colonies, and that the Battlestars were taking horrific losses. He pulled his pistol out, holding it like a lovers hand and placed it to his temple. He looked up to the sky and cried out for mercy, then pulled the trigger. General Marcos Bosnaric died moments before the Battlestar Atlantia, which seemed befitting, as the President, who shared the guilt for leaving the Fleet in shambles, died with him.

Battlestar Pacifica

137,000 km from Caprica, fifth in line of seven Battlestars

1/9/48 0800

Lieutenant Hobson Ingles never made the fleet celebration. He was busy flying another stupid CAP flight, bitching about his new wingman, who couldn't keep in tight to his Viper. He looked over and again the nose of her Viper was at least thirty feet away, making it an easy target if a Cylon Raider were to come along and try to gobble up a lagging Viper.

He tapped the comm., for the hundredth time, and again requested that she rejoin the formation if she's not too busy. He didn't dislike her necessarily, but everyone knew she was a Socialator, and that was just hard to accept. Sure, she was pretty, some might even describe her as beautiful, but that one fact was like a stone in the heel of a pair of fine boots. It just rubbed until it wasn't acceptable. The old model interceptor pulled back in tight and he went back to reading his PDA. It was a racy novel about two lovers trapped on an island where the women were amazons and used men for nefarious purposes. He grinned thinking of how he wouldn't mind having the new Lieutenant use him for a few of those purposes. He giggled at the thought and was about to tap the screen for the next page when the Viper beside him vaporized. He sat stunned by the blast and just blinked, trying to comprehend what he just saw. To his other side, the interceptor was already turning; its more maneuverable design was responsible for making it possible to position itself for an attack run. He dropped the PDA and activated his own targeting computer. The computer identified his killer moments before his own Viper vaporized. He would have been glad to know that his Amazon dream lover had already targeted his killer and fired her first shots, had he lived long enough to see it.

Captain Rajah Mubaric ordered the immediate split of his squadron. His targeting computer identified the attacker as Cylon, but of an unknown configuration. It was smaller than a normal Raider, with one extremely large engine instead of the two medium sized engines. The canopy was long and slender, suggesting one or two pilots, one in front of the other, instead of the tandem design they used. The wings were not the disk shape; they were long and rectangular, with four guns at the wing roots. Currently, those guns were trained on him, and he pulled a highly advanced maneuver, flipping his Viper end over end, to face the opposite direction he had been going, and thrusting down and now to the rear of his former heading in full Turbo mode. The Viper shook harshly, making his nose itch and his body ache. He grunted to fight the GLOC that threatened to consume him in its deadly darkness. The guns of the new Cylon were not fooled, they blasted him into vapors.

The Raider paid for its kill, the interceptor had found a weakness and had damaged its port side guns. The Red Raider shuttered from the impact, however, the energy shield dissipated the energy guns blast as it was designed to do, and the Raider survived what would have been a direct hit. Again, it shook as the pilot of that Colonial Viper poured on the heat, blasting away with a show of skill that took even the Red Cylon pilot by surprise. Such a challenging foe was rare, and this one was not flying the book they issued to the pilots of the Fleet. This one was performing maneuvers that were new and amazingly dangerous. He almost felt joy, had he been able to feel anything, at the ensuing duel that followed.

For the entire duel, his Raider was flying to its limit. He pushed the prototype beyond its design envelope several times, and each time it groaned in protest, but succeeded in making the turn or dive that he demanded. He noticed though, that his guns on the port side failed him every time he tried them in the tight scissors pattern he and the amazing interceptor pilot were performing. He recorded the duel, intending to use it to train himself, since he felt that this pilot was extraordinary, and however the duel ended, there was much to be learned from this, assuming he survived.

He knew that his mission had been to take out the turrets covering the flight bays of the Battlestars, and that until those specific turrets were destroyed, the suicide Raiders, packed with solium, could not make their attack runs to destroy the fighter bays of the giant Battlestars. Still, he could not pull himself away from the duel he entered with this interceptor pilot. They too seemed unable or unwilling to quit the duel. It seemed that only one of them was going to survive this day. He focused his second brain on the task of killing the human pilot, and his efficiency improved marginally. The tactics of the human altered, however, and they began to perform beyond the abilities of the interceptor model. He was impressed, a human capable of enduring the deadly gravitational effects of the maneuvers they were performing. He had never hoped to meet such a foe, but now that he had, he felt what he could only classify as reluctance to kill them. This was different from the mission he had flown only days before. Then it was to kill the squadron known as the Black Asp's, and that mission had been tough, but not like this. Then, he had total surprise, and they were tired, worn out, and unable to put up much of a fight. To their credit though, even exhausted as they were, with muscles knotted from far too long in a sitting position, half awake from the nearly twenty hour long flight, and the state of total shock, being attacked only minutes away from their base, they fought well. He had to really work to earn it, and the lessons learned from that fight served him now. He learned not to go after the leaders first, but to hit the middle of the flight, cutting it in half, which made it less likely they would regroup and defend. It was a lesson well learned, since two or three of these Vipers were possibly a match for him. The final kill he recorded that day was the toughest, and he delighted in its glorious fireball as it entered the planets atmosphere. The Asp's were no more, and the secret of the solium connection was kept a few more days.

Tabitha wasn't sure exactly what she was doing; her hands seemed to take on a life of their own. She was pulling the stick around, yanking and banking, turning and burning. Her fighter was an extension of herself, and they tumbled as one, like her gymnastics, only in space, and in an effort to kill a machine that had just killed her friends. The detonation of Battlestars around her didn't even faze her, she was focused only on avenging their deaths, and nothing was going to stop that.

Colonial Frigate Arc Royale

Hyperion System

1/9/48 0900

Captain Noelani Vaught was recovering from the violent launch from the Arc. She pushed over into a slight dive, her Turbos pushed against her back, as she and seven other pilots steered over to close on the contacts they had picked up inbound from the Hyperion jump point. The Arc was the largest ship between the inbound Cylon battle fleet, and the outer colonies. The Arc was a small frigate, not much more than a cruiser class with a launch/recovery bay attached to it.

Noel banked her Fantan to the left and let her squadron of Fantan interceptors form up on her. They were nearly five hundred kilometers from the Cylons. Already her DRADIS was lit up with more targets than she could count.

"Hey Pearl…" Lieutenant Hallowell called over to her from his Fantan, just to her port wing. "We are so incredibly outnumbered, this isn't funny." He said grinning.

"Don't think of it as being outnumbered, Mongoose, think of it as having a wide shot selection."

"Oh sure, ok, that just makes it all better." He joked back.

"Lock it up, were going into battle, Angel Flight, switch from passive targeting to stealth mode, lets go in quiet and stir up a storm." She ordered as she switched her Fantan into its stealth mode. The external sensors and probes retracted and all electronic noise was eliminated. To DRADIS technology, they were so small in return signal strength, that the filtering software of combat DRADIS would ignore them as a small meteorite, not large enough to report. The Cylons would never see them coming until they struck.

The Fantan was a marvel of Colonial Engineering. Its two supercruise capable TDE-8350 engines could cruise at the same speed as a Viper on Turbo, without engaging Turbo Mode. This gave them significantly more range and a lower heat signature than the Viper. With Turbo Mode, the Fantan was capable of outrunning nearly anything. The gun of the Fantan was also far different from the gun of the Viper. While the Viper was designed to be the most versatile fighter in the fleet, the Fantan was designed to be stealthy, so its gun was built to be quiet and difficult to detect when fired. The 3.2 mm needles were made from tritium and painted black. The rear was filled with a glow-lite material to allow the firer to track their flight. It was designed with five rotating barrels with cooling liquid passed in a sleeve along the length. They were designed long enough to allow the gas charge to dissipate before the round leaves the barrels. However, the magazine contains only 55,000 rounds, or approximately 20 seconds of firing, the careful, conservative gunner, could target as many as five Cylon Raiders before running out of ammo. To compensate for the low ammo load, the refuel link also contained a link for additional ammunition to be loaded while fuel was refilled.

Noel blacked out her canopy, another design feature built into the Fantan, preventing the canopy from reflecting any glare to other ships, as well as making the lights of the instrument panel hidden from anyone outside the cockpit. She pulled down her HUD, the large blocky headset that was built into her helmet. Once in place, it replicated all the instruments on her panel in front of her eyes. She cycled through the display setups available till she found the attack mode and set it to track Raiders.

"Thirty seconds to targets." She reported. The flight armed their guns and missiles in their internal missile bays. The Angels were about to give back a little of what the Colonies were taking.

Chapter 5

Fog of War

Medea Island, 500 miles from Port Harmony, Athena's Island

1/9/48 1300

The scene around the mine made Jeff vomit until he could vomit no more. The carnage was total. There were no living humans to be found. The Cylons had killed everyone, destroyed the little city, and had set up shop in the middle of the carnage as if it didn't bother them one bit. He couldn't stand to look, realizing that it didn't bother them one bit.

He ducked back down behind the wreckage of a ground vehicle, what type he couldn't say. Every now and again, a Cylon would pass by his hidden location. Each time he felt his heart seem to burst, his ears would pound, and he could scarcely breathe. He hated this new assignment, but he needed to get a report back about what he saw, however his survival radio was far beyond its range. He needed to connect to the Tri-Dee repeater tower near the general store. He had to get word back to the Predator to warn them. They had no idea what was happening here. He doubted that the two Jaguar pilots would make it back to the refuel craft. They needed to know, to blow these tin cans to hell from where they came.

He drew his pistol, making sure the .357 had a round in the chamber. The heavy automatic pistol was not the new energy pistol that the Warrior Corps were issued, but on Virgon, equipment came slowly, when it came at all. The magazine held seven rounds, he had four extra magazines and fifty loose rounds in his survival pack. Jeff wasn't sure exactly how he was going to pull this off, he would be dead before he got his radio spliced in; assuming he was able to blast his way into the TV station.

CVS-33 Colonial Corvette Defiance

1/9/48 1420

They had limped away under emergency power; the entire ship had failed systems. First Lieutenant Ryan Domiano had taken charge of Defiance after the first strike killed the Captain and the chief engineer. That left himself, the navigator, and the gunner. Ryan had managed to strip power lines from the weapons station to get the life support to feed off the emergency batteries so that they could at least breathe long enough to affect repairs on the doomed ship. It didn't look quite so bad once the smoke was cycled out and the debris was removed. They would never be able to re-enter battle without a serious overhaul, but they might make it back to a star port if they avoided the Cylons. That, it seemed, was going to be the real trick.

Corporal Tom Severny was the kind of guy that others would describe as a "natural navigator", in the sense that he just seemed to know how to get from point A to point B in the most efficient manner. That ability was being taxed now as he used an old sextet to plot a course back to the Colonial star base in orbit around the second moon of Sagitaron. They would pass through the spacing lanes that ran from Hyperion jump point to Virgon, but other than that, they stood a good chance of avoiding the Cylons. Since they had been jumped in the space lane from Hyperion to Aqualarion, so they had at least five days of travel before they had to be operational again. Even so, they were receiving the com traffic from other ships encountering the Cylon attack wave. It wasn't sounding good.

Colonial Frigate Arc Royale

Hyperion System

1/9/48 0905

The missile tubes of the Arc Royale rocked as they fired off all four of their Harpoon class anti-starship missiles. Then, before the cloud of tiny metal fragments and gasses boiled off, the racks rotated back and straight up to accept another four missiles. They also fired off, and the process repeated again seven more times, until the missile magazine was empty. Her small task force had fired off a total of one hundred seventy four missiles in the span of two minutes. Meanwhile the squadron of Fantans closed and began making attack runs on the Cylon fleet.

Pearl banked her fighter hard, rolling to dive below the return volley of missiles that the Cylon flotilla had replied with. The attack took down four Cylon tankers, three Cylon Basestars, and severely damaged an invasion barge. In return, the Cylons had destroyed two of the destroyers, damaged the Arc Royale, and they had lost two Fantans. It was a good sortie for the Colonials. The Cylons were pretty pissed off about it. Now the Fantans were taking evasive maneuvers to get back to the Arc, as they were now out of ammo and fuel. The refuel ships of the little fleet were stuck aboard the Arc until they were able to get the landing bay fires under control. So until that time, they were going to refuel off the Arc herself. Pearl didn't care for the solution, since they were still out of ammo.

They had managed to slow the invasion fleet that was headed towards Virgon, but that was all. They had not stopped them, but then, they stood no chance of that at all. They limped away as behind them, three Basestars and an Invasion Barge headed towards Virgon. The invasion was going to happen, but not in the force that it was intended to be.

Planet Virgon

Port Harmony

1/9/48 1345

The first shots that were confirmed by the VDF were the ones that detonated the space platform. The six hundred year old space station didn't go easily, it took a third barrage from the invasion fleet before it yielded its hold on orbit and plunged to its death in the atmosphere. With the death of the defense platform, was the deaths of two hundred and thirty crew. The guns of the platform gave as much as it took and the doomed gunners took five of the assault fleet with it, killing two Cylon cruisers, a destroyer, and two corvettes. The time they forced the landing barge to take on its approach was its true victory. The Cylons didn't take into account the age and the construction of the platform, being built in an age before energy shielding; its hull was several feet thick of tritium. The effect was that its minimal shielding was good enough, when combined with its armor, to withstand far more damage than a modern design, which would cost far less to construct.

On the deck of the Predator, a Fantan fighter was being readied with two ASAT missiles of the RocShasta-D configuration. The pilot was sitting in the cockpit, her arm hanging over the side, partially covering the single Cylon kill marker, freshly painted on the side.

It was warming up nicely to be a beautiful day, but the burning debris of the platform falling through the atmosphere gave hint to the true horror that the day was going to offer.

The contrail of a satellite launch vehicle streaked upwards toward the debris. Another attempt was being made by the forces on Medea Island, to establish communication with the assault fleet.

Shannon looked over at the contrail, knowing what it was, but her attention was more focused on the contrails coming down from orbit, towards Port Devotion and Port Harmony.

Chapter 6

Cowboys and Indians

Planet Virgon, 135,000 feet above Port Harmony

1/9/48 1400

Turning over onto her back, Shannon targeted the Cylon comm. satellite with the RocShasta Delta and tapped the firing stud as soon as the weapons board went red hot. She felt the missile jump from the launch rail as she pulled down on the control stick, placing the Fantan fighter into a steep dive. The Cylon forces wouldn't be able to target her for long, but she was vulnerable for the seventy seconds it took to ready and fire the RocShasta missile. Once clear of her rail, she could retract the DRADIS probes and go full stealth. She was doing just that when Cylon DRADIS lit her up like a parade float. Her DRADIS lock warning screeched at her for several seconds until the probes were fully retracted and the canopy shroud was in place. Then the Cylons lost their target.

Planet Virgon, Port Devotion

1/9/48 1400

Corporal Robert Pyke, 1st Recon Battalion 5th Marines, 1st Division, Virgonian Self Defense Force, knelt behind a ferocrete stanchion watching the advance of Cylon shock troops. The port was lost, the casualties were mounting, but so far the VDF commandoes were slowing the Cylon drive. The VDF armor was on its way, coming from the PPMIDA (Pre-Positioned Materials, Immediate Dispersal Area) sites as fast as the crews could top off fuel and ammo. The radio reports were saying they would have to hold the line for at least a half hour before the armor support would arrive.

He raised a Pilum missile launcher to his shoulder and opened the optical aperture to its Ready/Target position. He activated the battery pack and the microcomputer just in front of his pistol grip warmed up, the surge of energy lit the reticule in the optical HUD with a glowing ring around a Cylon Titan tank. He painted the tank with the laser and depressed the missile ready stud. Information was fed to the missile tube, telling the Pilum all it needed to know about the tank being targeted. It estimated its range to the micrometron as well as the most vulnerable point, the top rear of its turret, near the CASEMATE ammunition bank. A hit there would detonate the CASEMATE as well as knock the turret off its drive ring. While it was doubtful that the small handheld version of the Pilum would kill the Titan, it could make it unusable to the Cylons and force them to withdraw it until it could be repaired.

He tapped the firing stud and felt the launcher buck slightly as the thirty pound missile jumped from the tube. It raced forward ten yards before the rocket assist motor fired and a smoke puff followed as it fired up. The missile rose up and made a bee-line for the sky before turning over and racing down into the turret of the tank. The explosion rocked the tank and it seemed to shiver for several seconds. Bob lowered himself down behind the stanchion as the return fire from two Cylon tankers tore at his position. The anti-personnel weapons blasted chunks out of the stanchion and the camouflage that covered it. It was designed to withstand the gun fire from the tanks and it performed as advertised. He moved a few feet down and reloaded the launcher and switched out battery packs. Again he popped the sight over the stanchion and targeted a tank. From the edge of the optical seeker head, he saw the first tank turning crazy circles, its turret spinning wildly around and around. The tank wasn't dead, but its crew seemed to be. He lowered the launcher and handed it to a Marine beside him.

"I'm going to steal us a tank!" Bob said smiling. He ran from stanchion to stanchion towards the tank, reaching it after only a few dozen yards of open ground. The Marine he had handed the missile to, slammed into the stanchion beside him, still holding Pilum launcher.

"Hey devil dog, just in case, I figured you might want to have back your big rocket thingy." The other Marine said jokingly. Together they ran along the side of the tank, ducking the blasts from the other tanks. Bob jumped up onto the back of the tank and reached back to help his new buddy up onto it. The tank continued to spin on its tread, its turret swinging over their heads every few seconds as it spun out of control. Bob climbed up and on top of the turret, seeing the top hatches blown open, inside it. The crew were in pieces all over the inside of the tank. He rolled over into it, and pushed the body of a dead Cylon off the traverse controls. The turret stopped and he began to try to make sense of the controls.

His buddy was busy meanwhile trying to pull the body of the driver out of the command section, but the bulky body was heavy and getting it out of the small hatch was taking every bit of physical fitness he had in him. The rounds from the other tanks were bouncing off the turret now and Bob found the controls to open the tube. He looked over at the CASEMATE and saw the door sprung, but open enough to retrieve a round. He shoved the round into the tube and slapped the door shut. He turned the turret opposite the spin of the tanks body and targeted the Titan that was shooting at them. Bob said a quick prayer and fired the main gun just before the other Titan fired at them. The target never got its round off before it exploded into a fireball that lit up the area. His buddy had managed to extract the Cylon and had the tank back under control.

The loss of two Titans stunned the Cylon advance and it stalled as the rest of the tank company paused to get orders, since firing on their former commanders tank was not covered in their training. Bob and his new friend didn't hang out to wait for the Cylons to figure out what to do; they loaded and fired the main gun as many times as they could, the driver moving the tank side to side. Bob kicked the firewall a few times and signaled that he was out of rounds, and together, the two of them jumped from the tank after wedging a piece of Cylon against the control arm and running the doomed Titan into the retreating Cylon armored column. The fire from the Cylon tanks made the poor tank into slag. Bob and his buddy were still laughing as they made it back to the stanchions. It wasn't a defeat for the Cylons, but it was a set back. They regrouped and smiled as they packed up their equipment to fall back to secondary positions. The Marines bought time like they were asked to; and they delivered. Time was bought, paid for with blood and death.

Planet Virgon, 45,000 feet above Port Harmony

1/9/48 1405

Shannon pulled out of her dive and leveled off. Ahead of her was a flight of twelve Raiders. She had four AMRAAM missiles and enough ammo for another five. That meant she was going to have to hit every single shot and escape from three Raiders. The odds were highly unlikely. Still, she had two confirmed kills and was interested in making a few more today.

She opened the DRADIS tubes and activated the Fantans targeting systems. The effect was like a switch thrown. The Cylons reacted by breaking their formations, but it didn't help them. Her missiles flew straight and true and the Cylons found themselves on the receiving end for the first time. It wasn't so easy when they were getting shot at. Shannon banked towards the first group and began to target the middle Cylon. She pressed the firing stud and watched the tiny little needles tear the Raider apart like a paper doll. Debris flew all over damaging the Raiders nearby. Shannon watched two nearby bank and roll towards the ocean. She fired again and saw another Raider split along the middle as the two halves then flew apart. They exploded moments later taking out their wingmen. The Raiders began to bank wildly, each element maneuvering to get a shot on her. Shannon wasn't interested in letting them and she pushed the throttles to the wall and climbed, out turning and climbing the clunky older Raiders.

Fleet Strategic Space Command  
Planet Aerilon

1/9/48 1500

The 12 hour silence of the DRADIS dish array was logged by the Sentinel satellites and a timer began a count down. If contact was not made in another half hour, the solium based weapons on them all would be armed and launched at the heart of the Cylon Empire. In hidden locations in all the Colonial systems, panels were released on Tri-dee and commercial satellites. Small asteroids suddenly split open, and unmarked military satellites opened up like flowers in the sun, and missiles armed themselves. The satellites assumed the silence of the DRADIS array meant the destruction of the colonies. They were programmed to assume that the last known force to enter colonial jump points were an invasion force, and to strike at it if at all possible. It wasn't a perfect means to retaliate, but it was effective when it worked right. It only had to work once.

As soon as the missiles spun up in their tubes, the satellites launched, and a hundred thousand solium, and two hundred fifty thousand nuclear based missiles began their journey into the heart of Cylon. In just under five hours, the FTL capable missiles would enter a top secret jump point built just for them, and they would then appear out of jump minutes from their targets, and the Cylon cities, the civilian population centers, the military complexes, the bases, the slave colonies, the industrial complexes, everything Cylon would be reduced to vapor filled craters.

Medea Island, 500 miles from Port Harmony, Athena's Island

1/9/48 1500

Jeff Slatterly had been waiting for his moment, for a time to make a run for the antenna array, but it wasn't going to come. He gave up and decided to go to plan B. He pulled back to a position just outside the small Cylon base and began to make notes, the size of the unit, the weapons, the equipment, the activities they were under-taking. Nothing they did was to go un-noted.

He left after an hour and began to climb the tall peak just to the North of the base. Once at the top, he would try the portable laser radio, but he doubted it would work, it was line of sight, and he was beyond visual horizon. That meant that he would have to be higher than the highest point on the island to get a direct line to the Predator. He had a mission to accomplish, and he had to at least try.

CVS-33 Colonial Corvette Defiance

1/9/48 1600

The DRADIS board of the Defiance lit up with the signals of hundreds of thousands of large targets. Tom Severny woke up to the alarms of the DRADIS and knocked over a cup of coffee. He reached over to wake up Ryan, but that was not necessary, both men were awake and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The gunner, Chief Petty Officer 3 Myron Hecks, was also awake, and was trying to get the two remaining turrets, the dorsal and the port side turrets, to target the inbound signals. He was working hard at it when the board identified them as Colonial Solium Missiles. The cheers went up, the crew of the Defiance understood that the Cylons were about to have a bad day as well. They moved out of the flight path and monitored the missiles as they jumped.

Jeff waited until the last of the missiles jumped before announcing his plan, to reprogram the jump gate to take them back into system. He wanted to jump in-system and closer to a graving yard where they might be able to repair the Defiance. If it wasn't workable, they would be forced to use the gate at Hyperion and try for Ragnar Anchorage. Either way, Defiance was going to get back into the fight.

COLONIAL FLEET INTELLIGENCE OFFICE

Planet Caprica: Monte Claire Radio Observatory.  
1/9/49 1600

Delangelo waited for the green lights to stop blinking and stay on before switching the fleet DRADIS back on. The initial period was when the DRADIS aligned the hundreds of smaller dishes that were all over not only Caprica, but several other worlds. It happened automatically. He had nothing to do with the process, but 12 hours after the loss of the fleet dish array, the automated system would come back online in what they considered ELE mode, or Extinction Level Event. This mode was to enable ANY radio observatory left in the colonies, to scan the space lanes as well as to listen for life signs from other colonies. In this case, it recorded heavy jamming from the Cylon assault fleet. That problem was minor to Monte Claire, which had hundreds of times more power than the Cylon jamming ships, and the DRADIS burned through easily. For a starship or even the mighty Battlestar, the Cylon jamming would be sufficient to blind them, but with a set of solium reactors on 50 power each, the Radio Observatory was able to burn through the jamming like a hot knife through butter.

"Hey Mark, what do you make of this?" Major Delangelo asked trying to sort out the nearly half million Colonial signals suddenly converging on a brand new jump gate.

"Holy shit Dave… you don't think the Sentinels..." Ross nearly choked on words.

"Frack… I think they did. We might want to inform the Admiralty."

"If there's any Admiralty left to inform." Ross said grimly. The solium bombing of Caprica City was felt as far away as Monte Claire, and the images were just as horrible. Both Dave and Mark had considered abandoning their posts to go home and help their families, but in the end, they decided that they could help their families and the Fleet most by working through the bombing to keep Monte Claire online. Granted, the automated systems were the real hero's, but they helped, sorting through the local data, using the old out of date radio telescopes, for which Monte Claire was named, as well as listening to the Cylon radio traffic and breaking their battle codes. The last item took them all of fifteen minutes, working together. It wasn't a code designed to stand up to their counter intelligence, it was obviously an old code, modified just enough to be effective to prevent the ships of the Fleet from breaking it on their own. The Cylons were not concerned with the long term abilities of the Colonies, and that scared both of them. It meant that the Cylons intended to destroy the Colonies all at once.

To Ross, who had worked in Fleet counter-intelligence before shifting to signals,

The Cylons plan to split their massive fleet into battle groups became apparent. Each battle group would be tasked with a different Colony, which also meant they would not be able to readily support each other. The Fleet stood a great chance of defeating them, if they coordinated their attacks on a single battle group, then shifted to the next, and the next…

"Say, Dave, I think we might have some good news for the fleet." Ross said ignoring the bad side, which was that the Colonial Fleet would have to abandon the other Colonies in order to mass around a single battle group to destroy it, leaving the Colonies defenseless until they returned to destroy the battle group attacking the abandon colony.

"I'm all ears Ross, but before we tell Fleet anything, lets find them." Delangelo said with a sleight laugh in his voice. It was a grim joke, not meant to be funny, but meant to lighten the mood a bit. "And it damn well better not be that you just saved a bunch of cubits on your Viper insurance by switching to Rycon…"

"Frak you." Ross said laughing. It was an old joke, from the tri-dee commercials.

CYLON CENTRAL COMMAND

Balthazar cringed as the solium bombing of Cylon Central began. The Colonials had launched their Sentinels. He had hoped that the destruction of their DRADIS would prevent them from doing so. Already reports were pouring in of nearly a trillion Cylons destroyed. He was aware that initial reports were typically highly inflated, but still, that many dead in one wave of missiles, it was unacceptable.

"Report!" He yelled down at the IL unit standing before him. Lucifer seemed unfazed by the yelling.

"By YOUR command." Lucifer placed special emphasis on the second word of his reply. He indeed wished to remind Balthazar that this was all his idea, it was his command that began the attack on the humans, and it would ultimately be his head that rolled when the Imperious Leader asked who was responsible for this. "The defense lasers were able to track the Colonial missiles only briefly before they hit our entire infrastructure. Of the three hundred fifty thousand missiles that targeted every population and industrial center we have, we were able to destroy only seventy six thousand. The damage, I'm afraid, is quite severe. I do not think Cylon will ever be the same. By YOUR command."

"Leave!" Balthazar commanded with a wave of his hand. He felt something like fear, dread, horror, at the thought of telling the Imperious Leader that HIS plan had failed. Still, the Imperious Leader was not likely to over look the devastation. He opened the communications line to the Imperious Leaders citadel and hoped, for all his circuits, that it had been hit and destroyed. His hopes were dashed when the Imperious Leader turned around in a crooked command chair, with smoke and fire in the background.

"Report Balthazar, tell me why my command bunker is nearly destroyed." The Imperious Leader said mockingly. This wasn't going well, and was already getting ugly. Balthazar could almost feel the recycle bin grinding away at his feet, for surely the Imperious Leader would feed him feet first to the recycler, without turning his systems off first. There would be no mercy.

"Our attempt to disrupt the Colonial DRADIS seems to have backfired. The Sentinels were set to launch if that contact was disrupted, a situation that we could not have predicted." Balthazar lied. He knew damn well that he had been warned by Faust that the Sentinels would do exactly that if they destroyed the fleet DRADIS. He chose to ignore that. He chose poorly.

"Obviously." The Imperious Leader said with what Balthazar recognized as sarcasm. "Your command is terminated, as are you, you will report to the closest recycler, or I will have you dragged to it. Summon Lucifer."

"By your command." Balthazar said reluctantly. He would report to the recycler, simply because there was nowhere to run, and no one left he could trust to help him escape. He was already dead.

"By your command." Lucifer said calmly as he faced the Imperious Leaders image. Inside he was both giddy and terrified. He had waited for this stupid plan to fail, knowing that as the Imperious Leaders informant, he would be next in line for command, but also terrified that his command of Cylon would be during its most desperate hours.

"This bombing of our people, it is unacceptable. I have changed my mind. Destroy all humans, do not subjugate them, destroy them all, and bring me Baltar, I wish to see at least one human suffer as we have."

"By your command." Lucifer said happily.

Planet Virgon, 25,000 feet above Port Harmony

1/9/48 1405

The remaining Cylon Raiders were banking hard to her rear, trying to get in behind her, but the much more maneuverable Fantan was making that impossible. She played the tap dance game of adjusting throttles while pulling back or letting off on the stick as she began turning a large circle with the Cylon squadron. There were now only three Raiders left, but they were again forming up to work together to kill her.

The Fantan began to lose inertia so she stepped up the throttle again and felt it once again slice through the air. However, the Raiders were now beginning to get into a firing position. Shannon pulled up into a loop, knowing the Raiders couldn't match that maneuver. They were pretty close to doing so and she was amazed to see that they were hanging tough back there. These must be the new Advanced Raiders that she heard about. The old model Raider couldn't loop in atmosphere. Shannon banked and performed a split S maneuver, turning back towards her targets, a lightening fast maneuver that took the Cylons by surprise. They trained for space combat, not flying in a gravity well with an atmospheric fighter. This new concept of drag and lift was new to them, and their limitations began to show as she lined up on the leader and began a barrel roll, tapping the firing stud to create a cone of needles through which the Raider was forced to pass no matter what maneuver it tried.

The Raider seemed to just fall into pieces as the tiny needles devastated the ceramic and alloys of the Raiders super structure. The armor of the advanced raider was designed to protect against energy based weapons, which it would certainly do well, but was worse than useless against the high energy needles of the Fantan. The ceramic actually shattered and its fragments added to the damage caused by the hyper sonic needles.

The other two dodged the needle assault and fired back, shaking the Fantan violently as their energy blasts blew holes in the sky. Shannon felt the stick pull to the left a bit and knew she had damage to her left side control surfaces. She adjusted trim and banked around to engage the last two Raiders. They were bugging out at full speed, which was marginally faster than her Fantan was willing to go with a damaged winglet. She settled for ten kills and headed home.

Colonial Frigate Arc Royale

Hyperion System

1/10/48 0315

Pearl and her squadron were exhausted. They felt weary all the way through to their bones. It had been nearly an entire day that they spent in their fighters before the Arc was able to clear the landing bay and resurface the landing surface. They landed and were pulled from their fighters, as their legs were like jelly by then. The Arc was withdrawing to repair itself and to reload her missile tubes. For the next three days, they would be out of the battle, re-supplying at Ragnar Anchorage. It was the closest graving port available to them. They all wanted to be back in the fight, but the Arc was defenseless at the moment, and she needed those missiles. The task force was also damaged and needing graving, if they intended to get back into the fight.

Planet Virgon, Port Devotion

1/10/48 0600

The armor arrived late in the night and the Marines reluctantly withdrew from the lines as the fresh VDF troops arrived and filled in the holes. The Cylons had advanced throughout the night, pushing as far South as Minerva and spreading out from their spear tip to a front just over fifteen miles wide. The bulge was centered in the Solace Valley area, between the Oracle Mountain range and the Serene Ridge region, just North of Lake Bliss. The primary roadway through the Valley was already devastated by VDF air power, but at a hell of a price. The new advanced raiders devastated the Mk2F Vipers that bombed the road, and destroyed them all. The loss was horrific, as the Mk2F Vipers seemed incapable of doing much more than flying into Cylon guns. Later attacks by Virgonian Jaguars seemed to do better, but the real help was coming from the Predator which was launching and recovering aircraft around the clock. The Jaguar and Fantan squadrons were flying non-stop sorties to try to relieve the pressure on the hard pressed VDF Marines. They could only assist so much though, as they were trying to cover Port Devotion Harbor, where nearly the entire VDF Naval Fleet lay on the bottom of the bay. The losses were staggering. If they had had even a few hours advanced warning, they could have been under weigh, but the Fleet DRADIS went offline and no warning was ever sent to the Colonies. They found out the hard way.

Tank Battalion Commander Captain Cecil Goldsmith wasn't as concerned with the Navy as he was the Army. Obviously, being IN the Army had much to do with that, but it was also deeper than that. He idolized Major Catlett, hell, EVERYONE on Virgon did. But he wasn't convinced that these citizen soldiers he was commanding were the real deal. He had twenty tanks here, in their fighting positions, waiting for the Cylons to push forward enough to attack them. He had roughly ten thousand infantry in positions around the tanks, armed with only their M-590 rifles and wearing only camouflage uniforms in most cases. He felt bad for them; once the shooting started, at least he was protected by the thick armor of the Comet's skin. They were vulnerable and would likely run at the first close shots.

The few pieces of Cylon artillery began their preparatory firing. The area shuddered, the ground heaving under the incredible energy the Cylon artillery unleashed on them. Inside the Comet, Cecil held onto his chair, trying not to fall out as the Comet rocked from the shelling. He pitied those poor bastards outside. They had nothing to keep the pressure waves from knocking them about. They must be going through hell. He put his head down into his hands and prayed to the Gods to let it end.

Planet Virgon, Port Devotion

1/10/48 0600

Satan reviewed his maps again, seeing that the Colonials were pushed back into a valley. He felt some pride at that. So far he had not been able to land his equipment fast enough. The Colonial air power was unexpectedly effective. He was impressed with it, they were dogging the drop shuttles and had limited him to having landed only about thirty percent of his force. He was saving the drops for infantry, which he desperately needed. So far he had just over two hundred fifty thousand troops landed, but there was another half million troops still on the barge. He did manage to land most of his tanks, and they were doing better than expected. The artillery was a problem though. The heavy guns had thin tracks and they bogged down quickly and had to be dug out after they fired. The soft marshy ground of the islands was unsuitable for his self propelled guns, and this was a problem. The same was true for his anti aircraft. They worked off the same chassis as the artillery. They had not thought about that when planning the operation. It was a severe snag, and one which there was no work-around to. He had ordered the launch of the fighter/bombers as well as the advanced raiders to suppress the VDF air power, which meant his dedicated bombers were unable to launch, as they were launched and recovered in the same bays as the raiders, and so he had been forced to bomb with raiders only. That wasn't efficient and it was delaying the capture of the human settlements. Still, considering that the terrain was his worst enemy, he was doing marginally well. He was still waiting for that advanced party to get their Comsat into orbit, and that was making over the horizon communications nearly impossible. He had to task one of his bombers to fly circles over the port, relaying his messages to the barge, which was stationed over the Northern region of Virgon, where it was less vulnerable to any attacks.

Satan ordered the destruction of any humans found, but rescinded that order after he realized that it tied up valuable troops that he desperately needed to push the Colonial off the South sea wall. He needed to break their back and drive them into the sea today. If he didn't, it was going to turn into a recycler fast. These VDF forces were tougher than expected, and his ill trained troops were feeling the pain.

Chapter 7

All fall down

Magna Sector 37 Light Years Outside the Colonies

Colonial Research Station Arcadia

1/10/48 0900

General Brandt guided the massive Battlestar Avalon into a parking orbit fifteen meters away from the edge of Arcadia. The monstrous Battlestar dwarfed the station and caused some undue fear in the stations staff, but Brandt didn't give a damn about that. He needed to get his ship into fighting trim, and that meant a refit using the stations ship yard, as well as the weapons and fighters that Arcadia housed. The process of stripping Arcadia would take a few days, but he had that much time, he hoped. The Cylons certainly didn't know about Arcadia, which was a good thing. It meant a safe port for the time being. He could use that time to get a handle on the situation, figure out what happened, and how to best employ the Avalon to help.

Janus Godfrey was just a cook at the station, but he was delighted to watch the Avalon slip silently into orbit with Arcadia. Seeing the desperate look on the faces of her crew, he feared the worst. Then it occurred to him, if a Battlestar was parking outside their door… it meant that Colonial security was already compromised.

He was a retired Colonial Warrior, serving out time just for something to do. He had fought and lost both legs in the Cylon war, then retired to private life. That life just didn't suit him. The candy assed civilians just pissed him off and he knew he had to get out of the Colonies or end up killing someone. So he applied for duty anywhere, doing anything, and was informed that his training in infantry and flying Vipers made him an excellent candidate for being a kitchen bunny on Arcadia. That news instantly begged the question of "What experience then, exactly, would prevent somebody from being a kitchen bunny?" He hadn't answered that question, since as far as he could tell, ANY form of experience, and a pulse, meant you were a good candidate to peel potatoes in the kitchens of the Fleet. He considered that and decided to change that to "Having a pulse made you a kitchen bunny candidate." That seemed to be the only common thread he could find with the other bunnies.

He took off the pink hairnet and pink apron and set them aside, those particular pieces of apparel being the reason one was called a kitchen "bunny". Janus left the kitchen, leaving the eggs to boil over and become SEP, or Someone Else's Problem. He wanted to know what was going on, and the only way to find out was to ask them.

Planet Virgon, Port Devotion

1/10/48 1400

Fourth Armored took heavy losses all morning and well into the afternoon. The Marines returned to help support the green Army troops. Cecil thought they looked tired and weary. The VDF civil defense troops however, stood their ground, falling back only when ordered to do so. They were not graceful or tactically proficient in their defense, but they absolutely refused to budge even a foot, making the Cylons earn every yard they gained. The tunnels that the VDF used to move troops and equipment were packed with wounded and dead. The VDF would not allow the Cylons to count the dead VDF hero's, they denied the Cylons everything. For a tribe known for being peaceful and hospitable, the Virgonians were fighting like an elite Tauron commando team. Even with the obsolete infantry weapons, the old "Sword" missile launchers seemed to slow the Titans enough to allow organized retreat. The orbital bombardment from the invasion barge was making it difficult to mass tanks or infantry in positions long enough to do any real damage, however. They had to eliminate that orbital platform.

"Red seven, this is Harmony Command, do you copy?" he heard over the radio. He perked up, Major Catlett and the Port Harmony Army was on the line, trying to coordinate efforts. This was good, it was progress. "Go ahead Harmony Command, this is General Rolf Gustaf, commanding VDF Central Command, what can we do for you?"

"Requesting permission to launch RocShasta's on the invasion barge." He heard Major Catlett say with pride. That meant they had located the barge and were targeting it, that they were simply wanting to make sure that no VDF aircraft were engaged with it.

"Kick their ass, Eric! Kick their unholy chrome plated asses!" he heard his commanding officer yell in triumph. He looked out over the ridge line as his tank backed away from the last firing position. Off in the distance he saw seven missiles, which he assumed to be RocShasta missiles, rise up towards the heavens, to pay the sons of bitches back for what they had been doing to the people of Virgon.

As he waited for the rest of his tank battalion to get into firing position, he saw an immensely bright flash in the sky, and then it rained down debris just as it had earlier when they tin cans had destroyed the orbital platform Haven. The cheers from his exhausted troops were more valuable to him just then than all the fuel and ammo in the world. Virgon was fighting back, and making some gains.

Planet Caprica, Caprica City

1/10/48 2200

Tabitha Catlett landed the shuttle on the makeshift landing strip just outside the South suburb of Caprica City. It was her seventeenth flight, which was becoming more and more horrific. There was no rhyme or reason to the way the refugees were being loaded, the shuttles of Task Force Rubicon were busy flying mission after mission, non-stop until all the makeshift transports were filled. She was assigned to Caprica, though she was from Virgon and requested permission to fly at least one flight home to make sure she had evacuated her family. She, like all the shuttle pilots were denied permission to land on their home planets. The lure of desertion was strong, and the Commander was not going to allow the temptation to lure away his Warriors.

She helped another wounded lady aboard, and then felt herself thrown against the bulkhead. She turned and raised her fists, trying to figure out what had just happened to her. The form of a large angry looking man loomed over her. She tossed her hair back out of her face and wiped blood off her cheek. This wasn't the first time she had been roughed up, the people were angry, feeling betrayed and wanting to take it out on whoever they felt was responsible. It was a story common to all the Rubicon pilots. They were made to bear the burden of guilt for the entire Colonial Fleet. All the guilt, all the shame, all the hatred was projected onto the small shoulders of Tabitha and the pilots of Task Force Rubicon. She raised a hand to defend herself and felt the blows come again and again and again. It hurt, stung her cheek and jaw, her ribs were already bruised from an earlier assault. As if the loss of her squadron, her Battlestar, and her home were not enough, she was feeling the physical effects of being beaten again and again.

She curled into a ball to try to keep from being beaten so badly, and then finally it stopped. The mans rage had subsided, and he was looking down at her, his eyes still wild with rage, but his mind now clear. He knelt down and held her, shaking from what he had done, and now crying with her. However, there wasn't time to talk it out. She allowed him to help her up and climbed into the shuttle, holding her ribs as she made her way to the cockpit. Her co-pilot looked up then away. He too felt shame that they had failed the Colonies. There was not a lot of eye contact being made. So far all the shuttle pilots could do was try to accept that they had lost. It was especially hard on the former Viper pilots who were stripped of their Vipers and assigned to shuttles. That was not only insulting to Viper pilots, but it was understood as punishment for losing their squadrons and Battlestars. Their records were a disgrace they could not leave behind, and they were pariahs to anyone who would call them friends. To the pilots left behind from the lost Battlestars, there would be no second chance, no redemption, only humiliation and disgrace.

Planet Virgon, Athena City

1/10/48 1500

Major Catlett watched as the shuttles landed. Word went out that what happened on Virgon had been done to all the Colonies. Eric was pissed that the inner colonies had simply rolled over and died. He expected more from the other tribes, who always derided the Virgonians for their lack of fight. Then he heard that the Galactica was the last Battlestar, and how the Pacifica was lost with all hands aboard. He had to force himself to hold back tears when he heard that. His daughter, Tabitha was serving aboard the Pacifica. He had been lucky; except for Tabitha, his family was alive and well, safe in a bunker below Lake Desire. The Cylons were so busy fighting that they had not bothered to look for the shelters. Not that it would do them any good. The bunkers were sealed and protected by crack VDF units. The Cylons would not get to them before they were evacuated to safe shelters. The evacuation of humans from the colonies was a true sign of defeat. Eric wasn't willing to accept defeat, there was still a hell of a lot of fight left in the VDF. He wiped some sweat from his forehead as he watched two more squadrons of attack helicopters fly into the ruins of Athena City. The nimble VH-26 'Cuda was easily more than a match for any Cylon Raiders inside the twisted ruins of the city. Their tactic of hiding among the confused broken buildings, hunting for any Cylon Raiders they could find, made them as valuable as any Viper. It was able to hide behind buildings and "pop up" attack them as they flew through. This was cause of great concern for the Cylons, who had never met the 'Cuda before. It was a delightful surprise indeed. So far the 'Cuda squadrons had taken heavy toll on Cylon tanks and artillery. The fact that the Cylons had been stopped before reaching Harmony Base was due largely to the 'Cuda. The Naval assets left on Virgon were being diverted to help stop the Cylons in the Port Devotion front. Eric was having to pull mothballed weapons systems out of wherever he could find them to make something happen.

He pulled down his helmet visor as he heard a cry for help from a listening post, he was about to take a Bruno transport into battle to rescue those guys, and it wasn't going to be pretty.

Colonial Frigate Arc Royale

Ragnar Anchorage Graving Yard

1/10/48 2315

The graving yard at Ragnar Anchorage wasn't manned. That came as a disappointment to the crew of the Arc. They had hoped for some help with the repairs but in the end, the DC (Damage Control) teams and ships engineers were faced with the task. The Chief Engineer estimated two days of hard work would get them back into the fight, though it wouldn't be pretty. Captain Raul Gonzalez wasn't concerned with how the Arc looked, he just wanted to get back to Picon and do what he could to defend his family. The rest of his battle group could go on to whatever destination they wanted, but he was determined to get home.

"Captain, we have in inbound signal, could be Colonial, I'm not sure." His DRADIS operator said. The DRADIS board mirrored onto the giant glass screen that they normally housed their tactical display on.

"Have the Corvette, Liberty, intercept it and tell us what it is." Raul ordered.

"Sir, I have confirmation, its the Defiance." The DRADIS operator said smiling.

"Tell them welcome, and send to Defiance Actual, I want to see him when he has time."

"Aye sir…" the DRADIS operator sent the message and waited. In a moment he handed the Captain the reply. "Defiance Actual Killed In Combat, First Officer Domiano commanding."

Raul crumpled the paper in his hand and let it drop. His friend since childhood had been killed. He had no other family other than Ronald LeCroix. This war just got personal. "Tell all teams to hurry repairs, we are going back in, and I want to get in this war again NOW!" Raul pounded the rail around his command chair with his fist. He tried to fight back the tears, but they ran down his cheeks. He pounded the rail again, and again. The rage was so hard to contain, he had to hurt something. Inside him, the gentleman fought the animal, and he shook trying to get control of his temper. The rest of the bridge crew saw the big man taking it hard and gave him respectful distance and silence. He appreciated the First Officer of the Defiance for his tact in not broadcasting the death of his friend openly. He would have to thank him later.

Medea Island, 500 miles from Port Harmony, Athena's Island

1/11/48 0500

The climb was the toughest thing Jeff had ever done, but he felt so relieved when he got to the top. Along the way he had met six other refugees and together, they had made it to the top of Mt. Gilgamesh. It was colder up here, the wind tore at them and they had little concealment. The had made a makeshift camp fifty meters down from the peak, where the scrub brush still lined the side of the volcano.

Talking with the others, Jeff learned that he had a retired Warrior with him, a veteran of the Cylon War who had lost his arm. The replacement arm looked really good and Jeff could hardly tell it wasn't real. It certainly didn't hinder him any, and in fact, they had come up with a plan to use the bio-mechanical charging system of his arms battery to power the emergency radio once the radio's battery died. It wasn't a good plan, but it would work for low power short burst messages. If he sent only text messages, it might work. So he climbed to the top and began his first emergency transmission. "CQ CQ, this is Captain Slattery, VDF calling anyone who can hear me, CQ CQ." He waited. Nothing. He knew as much, it just wasn't able to make contact with the Predator. He walked back to the camp and nearly dropped the radio when he saw one of the refugees talking on a satellite cellular phone. His radio wasn't designed to work off satellites, it was line of sight, for security. However, he was stunned by the simplicity of the civilians solution. He sat down and laughed as he asked if he could borrow their phone.

Chapter 8

Arrivals and Departures

BSG-01 Battlestar Avalon

1/11/48 1000

Brandt marked off the progress as it happened. Avalon's shields were refit with the new "Focus" shield array. The equipment was basically carried in and bolted in place on the Avalon's barn like bridge. The cable and emitters were harder to install and they ended up cannibalizing the old electron screen electronics. That meant no secondary shields, but with the rhino hide of the Avalon, it wasn't necessary. The prototype "Prowler" fighters were loaded, though the weapons pods they used were having to be painted black to prevent them from getting mixed up with the weapons pods the older Vipers used. The engines were being refit with a new core and larger fuel pumps, that was good. It meant the giant alligator could outrun a Basestar. The might come as a surprise for the Cylons, if they remembered Avalon as being slow and clumsy. The missile tubes were still empty and she had no up to date weapons control software, but the technicians at Arcadia were installing some kind of strange round mushroom in the middle of his bridge. They claimed it would project a three dimensional image of the combat zone, complete with little likenesses of the ships involved, as well as display data about them, such as speed, damage taken, course, heading, probable heading, and suggested maneuvers. He could do without the suggestions, but the rest sounded great. IF it worked. He was delighted, not bad for a days work, but then, they had two hundred of the best brains in the Colonies working around the clock, and his DC and engineers were working with them every step of the way. In another two days, they would be off to Ragnar Anchorage to re-supply their missiles and guns.

He tried to lean back a little but the command chair was still broken. He spilled his coffee and cursed. This was some damn good coffee, even cold. The new cook from Arcadia knew how to make soldiers coffee. That, he smiled, was the best upgrade they had made since arriving.

Planet Virgon, Athena City

1/11/48 0900

The bottom floor of the Dymands Department Store was buried four stories below ground, in the heavily reinforced foundation of the high rise. Dymands had always prided itself on having the latest styles as well as being the most lavish shopping center in Athena City. Among its expensive fashions, it also sold the latest electronics and entertainment devices. The communications suite of the Dymands Store was also state of the art. The satellite dish array was now in ruins, but the powerful transmitter and receivers were hidden in the basement, along with two young Virgonians. The young boy now typing away on a state of the art lap top was responsible for the replacement dish that was now sitting under a camouflage net in the rubble of the building. His friend, and hopefully girl friend, Sarah, was making some hot dogs and beans on a cooker plate they had also stolen from the store ruins.

"Ok, Sarah, I think I have their codes down. Want to watch as I test it?" he asked. Sarah nodded setting the pan down and walking over. She leaned over the make shift desk, pushing her glasses up onto the top of her head. Danny tried not to stare at her lips as she leaned closer. He had the biggest crush on her. Sarah had straight blond hair and green eyes with smooth clear skin. She looked so girl-next-door with her cute good looks and her pink pouty lips, Danny found himself often zoning out when she was talking, looking at her lips and day dreaming about kissing them. He was still thinking of that when she pulled off her tee shirt and bent over to pick up the VR helmet. He helped her to plug in the VR suit she wore, which looked so sexy on her that he had to bite his lip to keep from making a silly noise he made when he was excited.

They both stood looking at each other through the visor of their helmets before they both waved their hands in front of their faces activating the VR suits. They "saw" the internet connection appear in front of them. It was neon pink in Sarah's visor, a greenish blue in Danny's. They saw the command line interface hovering just above their heads to the right. To the left, they saw the current URL address they were occupying. He put both hands in front of him and mimed opening a book, the action opened a program he had loaded in his RAM drive he wore on his hip. Sarah also wore a RAM drive on her hip, but Danny thought it looked sexy on her, though just why he couldn't explain.

She turned to face him and looked at the holographic display that hovered in front of him. It was translating data faster than a normal program could. Because it was already loaded into RAM, it could be accessed far faster than a program loaded from Crystal-Drive. As a result, it was able to flex and bend and wrap around the code bases that the Cylon command codes assumed in virtual space. The actual process of how programs work in VR was hard to understand for basically 99 of the population, but the result was a totally object oriented environment, where commands were selected, initiated, and stopped by the shape and position of an object. To understand how a program worked, was to understand how to shape the object that represented the program. Danny had crafted his first program at the age of seven, but it was just a simple file copy program. He crafted it to look like a light switch and snuck into the VR class room office and replaced the simple "light switch" object on the teachers office with it. Needless to say, it made studying for tests far easier. He was able to download everything that the instructors were working on. Since the majority of Colonial citizens were still afraid of the net VR internet, only a small fraction actually utilized the VR portion, hence the command line interface. It was planned that in time, the CLI would be eliminated.

Shannon watched as the hack program began to glow the same color as the Cylon comm. program. It was bright red, and she looked up at Danny excited. They had been working together all day and night to make the hack program work right. They were not sure what the result would be, but it seemed like they cold at least do SOMETHING to fight the Cylons.

"Ok, it works, its interfaced fully with their comm. program, now what?" she asked. Danny shrugged. He hadn't gotten that far in his plans.

"How about we screw with them." Danny offered. He reached back and "selected" a music program he knew Sarah loved. He activated the program and entered the command 'Dance' into the Cylon comm. line. Sarah giggled and he saw her disappear as she pulled off her helmet and shut off her VR suit. Danny did the same and together they climbed the stairs to the bottom floor. They climbed the top of the second floor debris and looked out over the surrounding area with the field glasses they stole. For about a hundred yards around, the half dozen Cylons the saw were doing some odd movements that at first looked like they were short circuiting. Sarah laughed as she realized, that was the machines interpretation of dancing. They laughed and pointed at the Centurions before going back into the basement. Danny jacked back in and together they removed the dance command and entered two simple commands, 'Leave' and 'Ignore Humans'. They went back to the look out point and were delighted to see the Cylon guards turn and walk away, ignoring them entirely. "By the Lords… do you realize what we could do if we could tap their entire network?" Sarah asked hugging Danny. She kissed him hard, fully and lovingly, and Danny blushed feeling his toes curl. He looked at her wondering if she really felt that way, or if it was just the moment.

Planet Virgon, Port Devotion

1/11/48 1100

Cecil and his 4th Armored were falling back regularly. Even with the audacity of the civil defense corps, the Colonials were being pushed back to the South. There was a large group of civilians boarding shuttles to escape the war not more than a eighty miles behind the lines. They had to hold the Cylons back, there was simply no other way. He ordered his tank squad to form up on him and they pushed up out of their cantonments and charged the Titans. The infantry on their sides also charged the Cylon infantry. From his hatch he watched the infantry engage the Cylon infantry hand to hand. The swords of the Cylons cleaved and the automatic pistols of the Colonials raged. Inside the turret, he told his gunner to fire at will and Cecil turned his attention to his anti-personnel machine gun. He began to cleave into the endless lines of Centurions. His driver didn't bother with turning or maneuvering. He drove straight into them, crushing them and grinding them under his treads. To his sides the surviving tanks of his squad were doing the same. The poured on the heat, one of the tanks firing off thermite rounds, creating fires that burned at several thousand degrees. The Centurions in the area melted or ignited immediately. The Titans stopped their advance as did the Centurions. The line temporarily stalled. The sudden aggression of the Colonials stunned the Cylon command, but they would not stay stalled for long. Cecil and his crews were buying time, trying to ensure the safety of the refugees.

Corporal Pyke held a 3.2mm machine gun in his arms. Behind him his buddy, Lance Corporal Krump was carrying a huge backpack with a link belt that ran to the machine gun. As they ran, Pyke sprayed the area with the machine gun and Krump fired off thermite grenades with his rifle mounted grenade launcher. The were clearing a swath nearly sixty yards wide and almost seventy yards long. Everything in the field of fire was instantly shredded. Anything not shredded was incinerated. The civil defense corps followed on, killing anything outside their field of fire. Off to the side, the Comets were blasting a path wider and longer, but it wasn't about the size of the field of fire, it was about maintaining it. Pyke knew that he was eventually going to run out of ammo, and that Krump was going to melt his grenade launchers barrel. He figured that the Comets were getting low on fuel and ammo. He only hoped that the Cylons were even lower on fuel and ammo.

Eleven more Marines joined Pyke on the top of a grassy knoll. They stood side by side, each carrying the same needle machine gun. They were spraying the area to the North as fast as they could. The ammo low light began to blink on Pyke's gun. "Reload!" he yelled at the top of his voice. One of the civil defense troops ran from the hidden tunnel entrance with a back pack of ammo. While Pyke fired at targets as fast as he could, the CDC trooper switched out the link belt to the feed lip of the fresh backpack. Pyke didn't bother to say thanks, or hi or anything. He was far too busy. The same scene was being played out by the other Marines. They were expending the ammo as fast as they could, making a wall of needles which cut down Centurions as fast as they reached the top of the hill. The pile of chrome plated wreckage was becoming deep, difficult to climb over or around, and the Cylons were forced to expend troops to dig a path through the line of their dead. The advantage of being on a steep hill gave the Colonials a definite advantage. They could not fire back at the Colonials while climbing the hill face. The way the hill behind the Cylons was so steep and close, it prevented Cylon artillery from assisting the Cylon infantry. With the Comets driving the Cylon tanks back, it was becoming a meat grinder for the Cylons. They were losing troops faster then they could replace them. It wasn't a perfect situation for the Colonials however, the Marines were already running on empty, having been fighting steadily for nearly 48 hours without food or sleep or proper hydration. Many had fallen, exhausted, unable to fight anymore, and were being cared for at the emergency infirmary. Pyke and his squad were one of three platoons left in this area. Being Recon, they were far more accustomed to long term endurance tests like this, than the CDC troopers, who were working in shifts. Even so, the fatigue was taking effect and the Marines were slowing in their reactions, running out of energy.


End file.
